By Joel Schreiner, Correspondent
Oct 17, 2003, 09:48 EST
Intelligencer Journal
As each course before it this year, the path carved around Ephrata Middle School proved to be no match for Betsy Sensenig and Craig Miller Thursday afternoon at the Lancaster-Lebanon League cross country championships.
Sensenig, of Ephrata, overtook Manheim Township\'s Shannon Reese late in the race to win the girls title, while Township\'s Craig Miller led wire-to-wire, coasting to a course record and his second-straight league crown.
\"It went basically how I planned,\" said Miller, who conquered the course in a tidy 15:58. That is the fastest winning time since McCaskey\'s Danny Pineda won in 15:55 at Elizabethtown College in 1990.
\"I thought I would win,\" said Miller, who finished ahead of twin brother Brad (16:25) and Solanco\'s Derek Jennings (16:48). \"I guess I would have been pretty stunned if I didn\'t.\"
And that\'s not being arrogant. The super sophomore hasn\'t lost a league meet in his two seasons and set course records at every L-L course he\'s tackled this year.
He also holds the national freshman record in the mile, which he set last spring.
\"I wanted to go out in sub-five (minutes) and I did,\" said Craig Miller, who went out in 4:52 in the first mile of Thursday\'s race. \"I was basically running my own race, running as fast as I wanted to go. I wanted to finish strong and I wanted to get the course record.\"
Ephrata coach Mike Delpiano summed up Craig Miller\'s race this way.
\"It doesn\'t get much better than that,\" Delpiano said. \"Craig Miller is a phenom. There\'s no doubt about it. He really made a statement. There\'s Craig Miller and then there\'s the rest of the field. He\'s in a class by himself. He attacked the course and put everyone else to shame.\"
Craig also led the Township boys to a convincing win over Hempfield in the team race.
After Craig and Brad, the Streaks also grabbed fifth (Harry Dixon, 16:56), 11th (Marshall Miller, 17:24) and 21st (Matthew Kanter, 17:33) to finish with 40 points, well ahead of the Knights\' 141.
\"I would say it went according to plan,\" said Township coach Terry Lee. \"The boys achieved what they thought they could.\" Earlier in the week, Lee had each of his runners privately predict their order of finish. Turns out, they were pretty close.
\"They were pretty much in that range,\" Lee said of the 40 points. \"Every scenario we came up with was about 45, give or take a couple of points.\"
Sensenig, who was also unbeaten this year and set course records on each course she ran, had to come from behind to beat out Reese.
\"I was not expecting that,\" Sensenig said of being passed. \"I heard her behind me for a while and when she passed me I sort of expected her to hold on, and she did hold on for a little while.\"
But with about 1,000 meters left, Sensenig (19:33) shifted into high gear and passed Reese, eventually beating the Township senior by seven seconds.
\"It\'s a great honor to win this race,\" said Sensenig. \"Because there are so many other great runners in the league.\"
Defending league champion Kristen Groff of Lancaster Mennonite finished third (19:53).
The Garden Spot girls continued their dream season by edging defending league champ Ephrata, 89-98, for the team title. Spot, the only girls team to go 21-0 in dual meets, won the first-ever cross country league crown in school history.
\"None of them held anything back,\" said first-year Spartan coach Brent Watkins. \"They ran their hardest.\"
As she has most of the year, Emily Beahan led the Spartans with a fifth-place overall finish.
\"I knew Emily would be there,\" said Watkins. \"She ran how I knew she would and she really held her own.\"
The Spartans placed five girls in the top 30: Beahan, Tina Young (12th), Jodi Sanger (22nd), Jill Sanger (24th) and Liz Stuckey (30th).
\"They\'ve accomplished three of their goals,\" Watkins said of the unbeaten season, section championship and now league title. \"The next one is to go to states.\"
To do that, Spot -- and any other L-L team -- must finish among the top five teams at next Saturday\'s District Three meet in Hershey.