Armstrong Cross Country Finishes Section Championships, Moves on in WPIAL

by Jake DeLuca

The Armstrong River Hawks Cross Country team finished up with Section Championships on Wednesday and now with only a couple of meets until WPIAL, the Hawks eye the big day.

In the Sectional Championships Armstrong faced off with all six of their section opponents - Oakland Catholic, Fox Chapel, Plum, Highlands, Kiski, Gateway, and Penn Hills.

The fastest runner on the day for the boys was Joe Gatti of Central Catholic with a final time of 16:53 and for the girls the top runner was Lauren Finiklotis of Oakland Catholic with a final time of 19:10.

The top two runners for the Armstrong boys had a photo finish with Hunter Wolfe finishing with a time of 18:50 and Mattithia Burt with 18:51. Rounding out the rest of the Armstrong boys top five include Mike Dobransky (19:31), Billy Kean (19:46), and Owen Valasek (20:57).

For the girls Michaela (24:02) and Josie (24:45) Landgraf were the number one and two fastest for Armstrong with Madison Titus (25:16) recording the third fastest time for the River Hawks.

Armstrong only has one senior girl and two senior boys making this a young team. River Hawks head coach Melissa Bowser said that most of her boys are freshman and the girls, sophomores.

“We have one girl (senior) and two boys, so it gives me some time to work with them (underclassmen). We have a lot of freshman boys and most of the girls on the team are sophomores. Those first year kids realized how important it is to be conditioned,” Bowser said.

The River Hawks will only have a couple more meets to run before WPIAL’s at Cooper’s Lake including away at West Shamokin on October 11 and one last home meet against Burrell on October 19.

With a young team the last two meets will provide extra practice because they are still learning and getting better according to Bowser.

“They are learning how to run cross country better. They are learning how to place themselves better in races and pacing themselves and when to make moves, when they are going to kick. They are learning that stuff better.”

Cooper’s Lake is a familiar place for Bowser and her team as a few players at the beginning of the year were anticipating beating their times from last season. Bowser says the key to success with a difficult course like Cooper’s Lake is pacing.

“The thing about the Cooper’s Lake course is that when you take off straight into a hill. The entire race starts up a pretty steep hill so the big thing is not hitting that hill too hard. There’s a lot of pacing yourself and making sure at the same time you don’t have too much left at the end. It’s good to have a kick at the end, but sometimes they still have too much kick at the end, but they’re getting there.”

WPIAL’s will take place on October 27 with schools split up in three boy groups and three girl groups with the first group starting at 12:45 PM. For more information visit WPIAL.org.

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