The build up to this race almost felt like Groundhog Day. In 2012, Unionville was having the better regular season compared to Pennsbury and defeated the defending state champions at Districts, only for Pennsbury to get their revenge against Unionville the following week and win their 3rd consecutive team title.
Fast forward 12 months and the story was the same. Not only was Unionville on top of the state rankings, but they took down the seven time defending champions Fayetteville-Manlius twice on their way to defending their league and district titles, defeating Pennsbury in the district meet by 17 points.
So would the experience of last year be repeated and Pennsbury would win their unprecedented 4th AAA girls team title, or would Unionville keep their nerve and bring home their first title since 2004?
Pennsbury were very game opponents, but Unionville finally brought home the state championship with a 51-57 victory over the three time defending champions. Courtney Smith finished 2nd for the champions with Olivia Young and Kacie Breeding joining her in the top ten overall. Pennsbury had a strong 39 second spread and had five scoring runners get individual medals. This marked the best performance for a team going for four straight championships. It was also the 5th time in as many years that Pennsbury has finished either 1st or 2nd at the state championships. Mount Lebanon finished in a distant 3rd with 101 points.
Unlike the team competition, the individual race was not much of a contest, a theme of all the individual title races throughout the day. Reigning course record holder Tessa Barrett of Abington Heights was looking for her first and only cross country state gold medal and she wasted little time trying to improve on her 17:48 performance back in September. Barrett ran the friendlier first mile of the course in a blazing 5:11, which was seven seconds better than the field. When it was over, she ran 17:30 to clinch the title and break her own course record by 18 seconds. Her performance covered up the fact that Smith and Mady Clahane of Cumberland Valley broke the meet record of 18:15 that Smith set in victory last year. Out of the 25 state medalists in the AAA race, only six of them were seniors.