by Tom Utescher One of five area schools who had their girls' teams running at the 64th Annual George School Cross Country Invitational last Saturday, Germantown Academy captured both the individual and team events at the longstanding meet in Bucks County. Senior star Abbe Goldstein, the three-time Inter-Ac League champion, was all alone as she finished first, covering the 3.1 mile course in 18 minutes and 33 seconds. The meet runner-up, junior Lexi Walsh of Holy Cross High School (located just outside of Scranton, Pa.), was exactly 40 seconds behind at the end. "It's very exciting," Goldstein said minutes after wrapping up the victory. "I won the Inter-Ac, but I've never won a big invitational like this, and that's been a goal of mine." GA's other four scorers all placed in the top 20, propelling the Patriots to the team title with a total of 63 points. As in the individual standings, Holy Cross was second here too; the Crusaders complied 87 points to rank ahead of defending Friends Schools League Champion Friends Central (third with 97 points) and defending Catholic Academies Champ Villa Joseph Marie (fourth with 116). Both Vila Joe and number five Council Rock North High School (123 points) are located just a few minutes from George School. The other four area teams ended up fairly close together in the point standings. Led by freshman Sophia Solomon (39th overall; 21:29), Penn Charter placed 11th with 333 points, while senior Griffin Kaulbach came in fifth out of the entire field (in 19:39) to help Germantown Friends finish 13th, with 358. One spot back with 363 points was a Mount St. Joseph Academy squad spearheaded by junior Jen DeGroat (36th; 21:22), and in 15th with 376 points was Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, which had senior Rebecca Saunders secure 24th place overall in 20:53. The Mount's top returning runner from 2015, current junior Mollie Mullen, was sick last weekend and had to skip the George School event. Backing up Goldstein's winning effort for GA, freshman Gianna Murgia (20:14) and junior Jackie DeRusso (20:20) placed 12th and 13th, respectively. Junior Kelsey O'Hara snagged 17th place (20:34), and the Patriots' team score was completed by Goldstein's ninth-grade sister, Isabelle, who rounded out the list of the top 20 individuals (20:45). The Pats had run their first dual meet at the end of August, shutting out Plymouth Whitemarsh High School. Last Tuesday on the Inter-Ac League's opening day, GA defeated Agnes Irwin, 17-42, Penn Charter edged Baldwin, 27-30, and SCH placed third in a tri-meet behind the Academy of Notre Dame and Episcopal. Germantown Friends had taken part in the Oakbourne Relays in Chester County at the beginning of September, but had not run any dual meets going into the George School Invitational. Mount St. Joe's participated in an invitational near Allentown on Saturday, September 10, then in the middle of last week the Magic split in their first two AACA duals, beating St. Basil and losing to Country Day School of the Sacred Heart. Heading out on the George School course last Saturday, GA's Goldstein was aware of most of her chief challengers, and expected at least a few of them to be pushing her through much of the race. That didn't happen. "I was pretty much alone after the first mile," she said. "I wasn't really ready for that, and it was hard for me to stay at a good pace." It was still good enough for a very comfortable win for the senior, and when four other red and black GA singlets appeared among the first 20 runners to arrive at the end of the course, the Pats had the team title in hand. At that point their closest rival, Holy Cross, only had three runners across the line. After Germantown Friends' Kaulbach came in fifth overall, the only other non-GA runner from the area to crack the top 25 was Saunders of SCH. Following PC's Solomon in the Quakers' scoring were sophomore Mary McDavid (53rd; 21:58), freshman Alicia Newman (61st; 22:07), senior Rosie Kaufman (91st; 23:09), and sophomore Hadley Ball (113th; 24:02). Well behind Kaulbach, the rest of the GFS Tigers' top quintet was composed of junior Helen Ruger (62nd; 22:09), seniors Sophie Quaglia (85th; 22:51) and Sophie Smith (120th; 24:29), and junior Caroline MacRae (122nd; 24:33). Mount St. Joe had DeGroat trailed by senior Kelly Ward, who came in 65th overall in 22:14. The other three scorers for the Magic ran together: junior Jade Killion (92nd; 23:14), sophomore Lily Howard (94th; 23:19), and freshman Lauren Ehnow (95th); 23:20). After Saunders became the first SCH finisher, a time of 22:26 was shared by Blue Devils freshman Elizabeth Moore (71st) and junior Haley Unthank (72nd). Next came sophomore Lilly Forest (118th; 24:27) and senior Paige Aloise (128th; 24:54).