PIAA District 10 Championships - Boys' Preview
Class-A
- State Qualifying Spots For Teams: 2
Fairview's Maddison Hayes will likely be blazing ahead of the rest of the Class A field. As a freshman, Hayes ran a 18:49.70 to open up her high school career in early September. She went on to get fourth at the Sharpsville Blue Devil Invite and will look to win her first individual title this Saturday.
Fairview is the favorite to win the team championship with other top runners like freshman Halle Myers and junior Juliana Robinson, and they'll be a team to watch for at Hershey as well.
Lakeview is the returning District 10 Class A team champions and returned all of their top seven from last year's winning team. Their top runner, Claire Oliver had a big win at this year's Cochranton Invite. She also ran a new personal best 5k time of 19:29.13 last weekend at the Mercer County Invite. She will likely be up in the front pack, breaking up Fairview's freshman frontrunners this Saturday.
Union City Area was a close second last year to Lakeview and will be in the mix in the team scoring again this year. Union City is led by junior Abby Anaya. The team was third overall at the Cochranton Invite and if their pack of runners moves up, they could snag a second place finish on Saturday.
Individually, look for Ellie Wanner of Kennedy Catholic and Grace Mason of Wilmington in this field, too.
Class-AA
- State Qualifying Spots For Teams: 2
Villa Maria girls look to add to their trophy case again this year as they head into what could be their sixth straight District 10 Class AA title. They are not only one of the top team's in District 10 however, they are the defending PIAA AA team champions.
Villa Maria is led by Grace Brown and Lexi Seifert this year, both seniors who will be looking to end their last cross country season with a bang. The pair will most likely be in the top pack of individuals in the AA race on Saturday.
Competing with Brown and Seifert for the crown will be General McLane's Devyn Bayle. Bayle dropped a new personal best time of 18:53.90 earlier this season at the Lock Haven meet. The sophomore also broke 20 minutes at the Slippery Rock Invite a few weeks ago. Bayle did not race any other invitationals this fall, so we will just have to see what she brings to the table on Saturday.
The favorite coming into the race however is freshman Gianna Labbiento of Sharon. Labbiento got second overall at the Slippery Rock Invite and set a new personal best time of 18:36.62 to win the Mercer County Invite last weekend. Coming off this win, Labbiento will certainly be a factor in the individual race.
Look for Harbor Creek's Madeline Curtis to also be in the top five individuals.
Warren Area was second overall as a team last year and will look to repeat that success and punch their ticket to states again this year. They are led by sophomore Naomi Hahn, who was fourth overall at this meet last year.