The long anticipated matchup between defending champions West Chester Henderson and North Allegheny was finally on center stage in Hershey. Would North Allegheny's state best pack running style be enough to take down the champions, or will the depth of the Henderson squad be too much to handle?
In the end, Henderson's depth overcame the pack running of North Allegheny. Behind Russell, Reiny Barchet finished 5th in his best race of the season. Alex Knapp was the 3rd Henderson runner to finish in front of North Allegheny's number 1 runner, and that locked up the meet for Henderson. Their score of 60 points was 37 points better than North Allegheny, who had a seasonal best 1-5 spread of 23 seconds. Henderson was 41 points better than Cardinal O'Hara, who finished in the top three for the 4th straight season.
In the hunt for the individual gold, the beginning of the race was extremely quick for much of the frontrunners, with a big pack coming through between 4:47 and 4:50, setting everyone up for a big performance. Defending individual champion Tony Russell of West Chester Henderson tucked in behind Easton's Colin Abert in the early part of the race, only to take over heading into the hills and improve his lead through the toughest part of the course, in the end, Russell repeated as state champion, running 15:49 to miss his state course record time from 2012 by 4 seconds. Colin Abert officially put himself on the PA map as a big time performer, running 15:54 to finish in 2nd. 3rd place went to Ross Wilson of Council Rock North in 16:01 with Kevin James of Cardinal O'Hara finishing a second behind him in 4th.