PA NXN Finals Preview: PA ready to take on new course in Portland!

PA will be represented by one girls team, two individual girls, and one individual boy in Portland, Oregon this Saturday.

Unionville returns to the NXN Finals coming off of a 2nd consecutive NXN Northeast Regional championship. After achieving the win by a much larger margin of victory compared to 2013, Unionville will be returning with confidence despite competing on a brand new course. On their first trip, they finished a very impressive 7th place, the best finish for a PA team at NXN on the girls side. Olivia Young (42nd), Kacie Breeding (60th), Gretchen Mills (114th), and Elizabeth Edwards (171st) were on that squad and will look to repeat or improve on that performance. The regional champs have not finished worse than 2nd in any invitational or championship race thus far this season. Young will also be in contention for an All American place while leading her squad.

Also looking for All American certificates are NXN Northeast Individual champion Olivia Sargent of Pennsbury and Ches-Mont champion Aislinn Devlin of Downingtown West.

Sargent made it three NXN Finals appearance in three tries with her comfortable victory at the Northeast meet, her 2nd win of the season. Sargent has come on strong in her last two races, running a seasonal best time at states and winning the biggest gold medal of her career last weekend. Sargent will look to break into the top 100 at the NXN Finals for the first time.

Devlin will be making her first career national cross country championship appearance on Saturday. Devlin finished 6th at the NXN Northeast race on Saturday, the 4th of 5 individual qualifiers to come out of the Northeast region. Devlin has finished in the top ten in a five races she has competed in thus far this season.

Kevin James of Cardinal O’Hara will be the lone male PA representative at the meet Saturday. James will also be making his 3rd appearance at the NXN Finals, and he has finished 88th in 2012 and 55th in 2013. This season, James hasn’t finished outside of the top 4 in any invitational or championship race this season.