Each week we will profile winners from the weekend of Pennsylvania Cross Country.
Winners may be teams/individuals who physically won a race or individuals/teams we feel made impressive strides towards their season goals. We cannot highlight every team or individual who had impressive weekends, but we welcome you to give kudos to others on social media or in person.
With that, let's get into our weekend winners.
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Although it was only an early season scrimmage, the 3A Twin Valley boys answered many questions about their pack's strength at the Spring-Ford 2 Mile Pre-Season Scrimmage.
They powered to a dominating 20-point victory, with a 1-5 spread of 34-seconds. As expected, Anthony Engle and Ben Meister went 1-2, but where they impressed was with the depth they subsequently displayed.
In total, they placed eight boys inside the top 13. Based on their finishes, we predict they have eight boys who can run 17:45 or faster at this point in the season. Not bad for a scrimmage in August.
The Perkiomen Valley Girls had a similarly strong performance to that of the Twin Valley Boys. Last week, we suggested that they would place four girls in the top 10 at the Spring-Ford 2 Mile scrimmage, and they proved us wrong by placing six girls in the top 10.
They defeated Downingtown East (who had an impressive showing in their own right) by a 13-point margin. Perkiomen Valley won with their 56-second 1-5 split.
To make matters better, Abrielle Schweitzer led the team. Prior, she has never run a cross-country race for the program. With the addition and the improvements of young risers like Allison Matasich, this team is showing promise early in the year.
Kamden Kramer turned a lot of eyeballs in Pennsylvania after shredding the 16-minute barrier at the Riverside Kickoff Classic Night Invitational in Ohio. He set the current Pennsylvania No. 1 after running 15:43 at the twilight meet.
Favorable weather conditions and an incredible crowd atmosphere created the perfect opportunity for the sophomore to flex his summer legs, and he did just that. He currently leads the Pennsylvania rankings by 25-seconds, outrunning the next highest Pennsylvanian, Gunner Geib (Manheim).
Of note, Gunner Geib had a stellar weekend as well. He improved his personal best by about a minute.
Coming into the weekend, Kramer's best time over the 5k distance was 16:44. He finished 77th as a freshman at last year's PIAA 3A state cross country championship. To open the season with a minute personal best sets him up to make further strides down the stretch.
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If you're going to open your season, you should do it like Virginia Kraus (Moravian Academy). She led from wire to wire at the Lions Invitational, running away from the field and setting the PA No. 1 in 18:37.45.
To the home crowd's delight, she kicked down the final stretch nearly a minute before the next finisher, despite blistering hot conditions. Her time was faster than any run in 1A last year and the 10th fastest time of the past decade in 1A.
She instantly became THE favorite to win the PIAA 1A state championship in November.
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