It wasn't an all-out effort for Marlee Starliper, but it was still enough for a record-setting run by the Northern senior.
Starliper used the Saturday's PIAA Foundation Invitational as a workout of sorts and clocked a 17:40 for the win in the Blue Race. That time is also a course record, bettering Aislinn Devlin's 2016 best of 17:44 from the state meet in the inaugural season of the "Reverse Aloha Hills" layout of the course.
The plan was for Starliper to tempo the first mile and work the hills on the second mile. She stayed with a pack of leaders early on before breaking out and going solo for the win.
In addition to Starliper's record run, the top AA ranked Northern Polar Bears earned the team title with 76 points, three points ahead of second place South Fayette. Madison Saltsburg and Allie Engle came across 12th and 13th, respectively, while Katie Anthony was 24th for Northern, which defended its Foundation title.
Next up for Starliper and her teammates is the Carlisle Invitational next Saturday. It's a fast course (weather permitting) and part of the reason Starliper didn't go all-out at Hershey was to conserve some for Carlisle. where she'll look to eclipse her all-time best XC 5K time of 16:30, which she ran a few weeks ago at Lebanon Valley College.
Watch Starliper's Blue Race win above and check out a post-race interview below.