Ellwood City Boys Cross Country Team Places 3rd In WPIAL Championships, Advances to PIAA

The Ellwood City Boys Cross Country team finished with a bronze medal Thursday at the WPIAL Class 2A Cross Country Championships and will advance to the PIAA State Championships next weekend.

“As a collective, we had an extremely successful day and I believe we shocked some boys teams,” said head coach Nate Brown.

Lucas Bleakney was the first finisher for the Wolverines and took 6th overall with a time of 15:59.80.

“All year the PIAA meet has been his goal,” says Brown. “He really wanted to get under 10 and met his goal.”

Three runners, including Bleakney, medaled for their performance Thursday at White Oak Park in McKeesport.

Gio Venezie (16:54.40) and Nick DePaoli (17:07.80) also were medalists, finishing 22nd and 27th respectively.

For the team performance, 4th and 5th runners, Reese Edwards and Jacoby McKinney had impactful performance according to their head coach.

“They both stepped up and raced with the idea PIAA qualification was only possible with their best races yet.”

The Ellwood City girls team had racers with personal records on the course and a few hopefuls for PIAA with Sophia D’Addio leading the way with a 21:25.9.

“Today we celebrate and recover,” adds Brown. “Tomorrow begins prepping for the Parkview Course in Hershey. They earned this race.”

The PIAA cross country meet will take place Saturday, November 1st at the Parkview Cross Country Course in Hershey, PA. Class 2A will begin at 12:30 p.m.  The Wolverines team placed 7th two years ago at PIAA Championships

“The boys know there’s more work to be done and they belong in Hershey,” concludes Brown. “They’re excited. They love racing.”

Junior Jonah Montagnese of Quaker Valley took the gold medal for the Class 2A boys with a time of 15:08.70. The Quakers won as a team for the second consecutive year, totaling 90 points to beat North Catholic (149) and Ellwood City (172). The Quakers had three other finishers aside from Montagnese finish in the top 21. [VIEW FULL RESULTS]

PIAA Class 2A Boys State Qualifiers
1st Jonah Montagnese, Quaker Valley TQ; 6th Lucas Bleakney, Ellwood City TQ; 9th Brody Graham, Blackhawk IQ; 10th Isaac Burtt, Beaver Area IQ; 11th Luca Flitcraft, Hopewell IQ;16th Ryan Kempton, Quaker Valley TQ; 18th Tyler Bell, Quaker Valley TQ; 21st Henry Howard; Quaker Valley TQ; 22nd Gio Venezie, Ellwood City TQ; 27 Nicklas Young, Ellwood City TQ; 35th River Capek, Quaker Valley TQ; 47th James Irwin, Quaker Valley TQ; 56th Reese Edwards, Ellwood City TQ; 61st Michael Minnock, Quaker Valley TQ; 65th Jacoby McKinney, Ellwood City TQ;