BY JEFF FALK
LEBANON – For Miranda Salvo, it was a moment during which time seemed to stand still.
For her Palmyra girls’ teammates, it was yet another shining moment, despite the damp conditions.
For the Cedar Crest boys’ squad, it was a moment upon which to build momentum.
For Tyler McFeaters, it was the moment of a running lifetime.
There sure was a lot of ‘living in the moment’ going on Saturday morning at South Hills Park, during the annual Lebanon County Cross Country Championships. Salvo, the 2013 District Three Class AA champion, led the Cougar girls – both physically and mentally – to an impressive sweep and their incredible sixth straight County team crown.
On the boys’ side, the Falcons received strong outings from Jared Glosser, Tanner Craun, Jordan Cruise and Jesse Cruise to nudge Palmyra’s boys by 17 team points. But in many ways it was McFeaters, a Northern Lebanon 12th-grader, who stole the show, after emerging from the middle of the lead pack and eventually pulling away for a nine-second victory.
“This was definitely my biggest win,” said McFeaters. “I’ve never done anything like this before. This was something I was looking forward to. It’s a huge win. Now I’m just looking forward to districts, and hopefully getting to states. This is definitely going to help my confidence.
“I’m really surprised I was able to pull away like that,” added McFeaters. “I was expecting them to come back up on me again. I was looking for top-ten, maybe. I wanted to stay with the lead pack. The (rainy) weather definitely helped me today. I felt really good. I don’t like to run in the heat.”
McFeaters was mostly just hanging around up front for the majority of the race, before using his long strides to cover South Hills’ down-hill homestretch. His winning time of 17:00.14 was easily better than runner-up Erza Daniel of Palmyra.
The Cedar Crest contingent of Glosser, Craun, senior Cruise and sophomore Cruise checked in next, while Elco’s Jonathan Garcia was seventh, Raider teammate Jared Harnish was eighth, Palmyra’s Max Perry ninth and Cougar Kevin Cole tenth.
“The Lebanon kid (Derin Klick) went out and it started off pretty fast,” said McFeaters of the race. “The first mile was around 5:30 and I was trying to stick with the Cedar Crest guys. On the second lap, I was still feeling pretty good. I used the hills pretty good. I have long legs and that helps.
“I won our first dual meet,” continued McFeaters. “Other seasons, I haven’t been as healthy. I still haven’t gone under 17-flat. They told me I ran 17:00-something today. Oh, boy!”
“He’s got good leg speed,” said Cedar Crest boys’ coach Brandon Risser of McFeaters. “If you look at last year’s County (Track and Field) meet, he had a really fast time in the 1600. It wasn’t a surprise for me at all.”
Junior Matthew Royer ran 11th and rounded out Cedar Crest’s scoring of 27 team points. Annville-Cleona finished behind runner-up Palmyra, followed by Northern Lebanon and Lebanon.
“I just wanted to take the next step in our season,” said Risser, leader of a Falcon program which has certainly enjoyed its share of success at the County meet. “We wanted to run hard, run tough and come out with a win. We’re still growing up, and that’s exciting. I think the big thing about us is it’s not an individual thing, it’s a team thing. Today was a solid race.
“This is still the tired part of the season,” added Risser. “Hopefully we take care of business and move on to the next step. Last year we were so good at the County meet, maybe too good. But it’s an opportunity to compete and get better. It’s still early. We have a lot of training and improving to go.”
Salvo and her Cougar colleagues grabbed control of the girls’ race at the very beginning and never relinquished it. Running with fellow senior Maria Tukis, sophomore Kelsei Bixler and ‘freshie’ Sarah Hollen, Salvo’s Striders at times appeared to be running in formation, well ahead of the rest of the field.
But on the course’s final descent, Salvo, who had thrown a shoe at the halfway point of the race, and Bixler broke away from their teammates, before Salvo out kicked Bixler to the finish line. Officially, Salvo was timed in 20:09.37 and beat Bixler by .54 of a second, while Hollen was third and Tukis, the 2012 Class AA District Three champ, came in fourth.
Palmyra freshmen Ellie Keck was fifth, followed by Mackenzie Shiner of Cedar Crest, Michelle Kiss of Cedar Crest, Katie Keck of Palmyra, Abby Dundore of Elco and Sarah Domencic of Annville-Cleona.
“She’s still not the most outspoken person,” said Palmyra girls’ coach Barb Mellinger of Salvo. “But she has the confidence, and she’s able to instill that confidence into her teammates. She has grown into a leader. And that’s another one of our strengths. Our leaders are awesome. Sometimes they coach me.
“Our biggest strength is we trust each other,” added Mellinger. “We push each other. We love this course. There was no sense of urgency up front.”
Palmyra achieved cross country’s equivalent of the perfect score – a 15. Cedar Crest was a distant second with 53 team points, and Elco was third, Annville-Cleona fourth and Northern Lebanon fifth.
“This is an event we always enjoy,” said Mellinger. “We know it’s going to be competitive. But we want to come out of it feeling confident. We were pretty confident coming in. We’re looking a little bit down the road. But we knew we could do it.
“We know there’s pressure on us because we’re (Class) AAA,” added Mellinger. “We’ve got to keep adding to our wall (of honors). We know it’s hard. For us in AAA, we’re looking at districts. But we do have a goal of going to states. We know what we’re in for. We’ve been there before. But we’ve got to get there first.”
Lebanon County Championships - 9/13/2014 South Hills Park, Lebanon, PA Event 2 Boys 5k Run CC ======================================================================= Name Year School Finals Points ======================================================================= 1 McFeaters, Tyler 12 Northern Lebanon HS 17:00.14 1 2 Daniel, Erza 12 Palmyra HS 17:09.59 2 3 Glosser, Jared 12 Cedar Crest HS 17:15.18 3 4 Craun, Tanner 12 Cedar Crest HS 17:20.28 4 5 Cruise, Jordan 12 Cedar Crest HS 17:20.95 5 6 Cruise, Jesse 10 Cedar Crest HS 17:26.33 6 7 Garcia, Jonathan 12 Elco HS 17:29.37 8 Harnish, Jared 11 Elco HS 17:30.75 9 Perry, Max 12 Palmyra HS 17:32.84 7 10 Cole, Kevin 10 Palmyra HS 17:33.90 8 11 Royer, Matthew 11 Cedar Crest HS 17:44.27 9 12 Robinson, Jason 12 Palmyra HS 17:48.20 10 13 Deysher, David 12 Cedar Crest HS 17:55.52 11 14 Redcay, Noah 12 Cedar Crest HS 17:58.99 12 15 Klick, Derin 10 Lebanon HS 17:59.73 13 16 Fattarole, Anthony 10 Annville-Cleona HS 18:00.13 14 17 Vukovich, Bryce 11 Cedar Crest HS 18:07.20 15 18 Zechman, Jon 12 Annville-Cleona HS 18:14.01 16 19 Lingle, Dale 12 Palmyra HS 18:21.19 17 20 Darok, Matt 12 Annville-Cleona HS 18:27.20 18 21 Nolen, Kyle 10 Palmyra HS 18:31.85 19 22 Carpenter, Tyler 12 Annville-Cleona HS 18:32.50 20 23 Arnold-Paine, Ethan 12 Lebanon HS 18:32.89 21 24 Adams, Klayton 10 Northern Lebanon HS 18:33.50 22 25 Werni, Daryl 10 Lebanon HS 18:47.43 23 26 Brandt, Matthew 11 Palmyra HS 18:51.80 24 27 Funck, Garrett 10 Palmyra HS 19:09.17 25 28 Shertzer, Doyle 9 Annville-Cleona HS 19:31.74 26 29 Brownstein, Jesse 11 Lebanon HS 19:38.21 27 30 Darok, Michael 12 Annville-Cleona HS 19:50.86 28 31 Mullins, Brandon 10 Annville-Cleona HS 19:53.52 29 32 Kudlanov, Eugene 11 Northern Lebanon HS 19:58.18 30 33 McAllister, Ryan 9 Elco HS 20:26.38 34 Snyder, Matt 11 Northern Lebanon HS 20:39.27 31 35 Lyon, Nate 11 Northern Lebanon HS 21:10.98 32 36 Pyles, Earl 10 Northern Lebanon HS 21:11.60 33 37 Tipton, Devin 11 Northern Lebanon HS 21:28.19 34 38 Bosworth, Derek 11 Annville-Cleona HS 21:28.53 35 39 Schulden, Eric 12 Northern Lebanon HS 22:43.60 36 40 Hetrick, Sterling 10 Elco HS 22:45.45 41 Staton, Anthony 12 Lebanon HS 23:11.36 37 42 Heagy, Paul 10 Lebanon HS 23:54.01 38 43 Wike, Blaine 10 Lebanon HS 25:44.55 39 44 Velez, Brandon 10 Lebanon HS 26:37.09 40
Team Scores ================================================================================= Rank Team Total 1 2 3 4 5 *6 *7 *8 *9 ================================================================================= 1 Cedar Crest HS 27 3 4 5 6 9 11 12 15 Total Time: 1:27:07.01 Average: 17:25.41 2 Palmyra HS 44 2 7 8 10 17 19 24 25 Total Time: 1:28:25.72 Average: 17:41.15 3 Annville-Cleona HS 94 14 16 18 20 26 28 29 35 Total Time: 1:32:45.58 Average: 18:33.12 4 Northern Lebanon HS 116 1 22 30 31 32 33 34 36 Total Time: 1:37:22.07 Average: 19:28.42 5 Lebanon HS 121 13 21 23 27 37 38 39 40 Total Time: 1:38:09.62 Average: 19:37.93
Lebanon County Championships - 9/13/2014 South Hills Park, Lebanon, PA Event 1 Girls 5k Run CC ======================================================================= Name Year School Finals Points ======================================================================= 1 salvo, Miranda 12 Palmyra HS 20:09.37 1 2 Bixler, Kelsei 10 Palmyra HS 20:09.91 2 3 Hollen, Sarah 9 Palmyra HS 20:16.44 3 4 Tukis, Maria 12 Palmyra HS 20:21.53 4 5 Keck, Ellie 9 Palmyra HS 20:41.75 5 6 Shiner, Mackenzie 11 Cedar Crest HS 20:46.23 6 7 Kiss, Michelle 12 Cedar Crest HS 20:51.20 7 8 Keck, Katie 11 Palmyra HS 21:11.82 8 9 Dundore, Abby 11 Elco HS 21:15.92 9 10 Domencic, Sarah 9 Annville-Cleona HS 21:31.72 10 11 Kerper, Juliana 11 Palmyra HS 21:37.16 11 12 Ulrich, Brittany 12 Lebanon HS 21:47.68 13 Waldron, Kyla 11 Cedar Crest HS 21:48.75 12 14 Laliberte, Brianna 11 Cedar Crest HS 22:01.87 13 15 Plato, Julia 11 Palmyra HS 22:15.11 14 16 Lyter, Kelsey 12 Cedar Crest HS 22:20.86 15 17 Foster, Molly 12 Lebanon HS 22:30.54 18 Casciotti, Melissa 12 Annville-Cleona HS 23:00.03 16 19 Nazeeri, Elizabeth 9 Cedar Crest HS 23:04.79 17 20 Troutman, Brenna 9 Elco HS 23:07.62 18 21 Stalnecker, Ashley 10 Cedar Crest HS 23:10.45 19 22 Darkes, Charley 11 Northern Lebanon HS 23:40.42 20 23 Hartman, Maddy 10 Lebanon HS 23:41.41 24 Dolan, Kaitlin 11 Northern Lebanon HS 23:53.79 21 25 Rich, Hannah 11 Elco HS 23:59.71 22 26 Davis, Gwyneth 11 Cedar Crest HS 24:21.39 23 27 Fair, Angela 11 Annville-Cleona HS 25:17.16 24 28 Patel, Drashti 10 Northern Lebanon HS 25:25.85 25 29 Light, Kayla 10 Elco HS 27:15.28 26 30 Yourman, Shaylin 9 Northern Lebanon HS 27:32.76 27 31 Luu, Katia 11 Annville-Cleona HS 28:04.44 28 32 Nelson, Danielle 10 Elco HS 28:44.13 29 33 Casler, Hannah 9 Northern Lebanon HS 29:56.29 30 34 Abern, Amanda 12 Annville-Cleona HS 30:17.17 31
Team Scores ================================================================================= Rank Team Total 1 2 3 4 5 *6 *7 *8 *9 ================================================================================= 1 Palmyra HS 15 1 2 3 4 5 8 11 14 Total Time: 1:41:39.00 Average: 20:19.80 2 Cedar Crest HS 53 6 7 12 13 15 17 19 23 Total Time: 1:47:48.91 Average: 21:33.79 3 Elco HS 104 9 18 22 26 29 Total Time: 2:04:22.66 Average: 24:52.54 4 Annville-Cleona HS 109 10 16 24 28 31 Total Time: 2:08:10.52 Average: 25:38.11 5 Northern Lebanon HS 123 20 21 25 27 30 Total Time: 2:10:29.11 Average: 26:05.83
Loading ...