SCH cross country edged by Charter, 27-29

Posted 10/10/16

The three runners seen here early in last week's dual meet, Springside Chestnut Hill's Noah Chandler (left) and Marco Goldberg (right) and Penn Charter's Harper Pollio-Barbee (center), were more …

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SCH cross country edged by Charter, 27-29

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The three runners seen here early in last week's dual meet, Springside Chestnut Hill's Noah Chandler (left) and Marco Goldberg (right) and Penn Charter's Harper Pollio-Barbee (center), were more widely separated by the end of the race. (Photo by Tom Utescher) The three runners seen here early in last week's dual meet, Springside Chestnut Hill's Noah Chandler (left) and Marco Goldberg (right) and Penn Charter's Harper Pollio-Barbee (center), were more widely separated by the end of the race. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

The boys on the Springside Chestnut Hill Academy cross country team paid a visit to Penn Charter's home course at Belmont Plateau last Tuesday afternoon, hoping, just like their hosts, to register their first dual meet victory of the Inter-Ac League season. It turned out to be quite a closely-contested race, with the PC Quakers emerging with a 27-29 victory.

Charter captured first place, but the next three spots went to the Blue Devils. Next, Penn Charter's prospects brightened once more as a quartet of Quakers pushed past several Blue Devils relatively late in the race to lock in the winning score.

Earlier in the season, SCH had suffered setbacks against league rivals Germantown Academy, Haverford School, and Episcopal Academy. A dual meet that the Blue Devils had originally scheduled with Malvern Prep will not take place, by mutual agreement.

Charter opened up in the Inter-Ac with a loss to Haverford, then succumbed to Episcopal and Malvern. The Quakers will complete their dual meet league schedule in a rather anti-climactic manner, running Germantown Academy on October 18th, the day after the Inter-Ac Championships.

At the end of the first mile of last Tuesday's event at Belmont, the race had broken up and had three clear frontrunners, PC senior Harper Pollio-Barbee and senior Noah Chandler and freshman Marco Goldberg of Springside Chestnut Hill (Goldberg's older brother, Zach, is a junior on the highly successful squad at Germantown Friends).

These three athletes would become separated over the last two miles of the Belmont circuit. Pollio-Barbee, Penn Charter's number one runner all season, broke the 18-minute barrier to win in 17 minutes, 58 seconds.

SCH fans became hopeful when the Blue Devils secured the next three places. Chandler was second in 18:30, Goldberg third in 19:12, and senior Jamie Alden fourth in 19:21.

Emerging from the wooded middle section of the course with roughly a mile remaining, around half-a-dozen SCH and PC runners following Alden were interspersed, and the Blue Devils looked to have a fair shot at pulling out a close victory.

However, in the final loop up around the crest of Belmont Plateau, four Penn Charter runners pulled together as a pack and all moved ahead of the nearby Springside Chestnut Hill athletes. These four ended up rounding out the Quakers' official team score and giving their school a two-point edge in the final reckoning.

Crossing the line within a six-second span to take fifth through eighth place were senior Josh Patton (19:56), sophomore Timur Serbest (19:57), junior Blaise Ciarrocchi (20:00) and freshman Luke Jaspan (20:02).

Just one second behind was SCH senior Mike Wrede, who placed ninth and shared a time of 20:03 with the 10th-place finisher, Quakers junior Luke Brogan. Completing the Blue Devils' team score with an 11th-place showing was sophomore Alex Koscica, who clocked in at 20:15.

Penn Charter wound up placing its top eight runners among the first 13 overall, as sophomore Alex Turner took 12th place in 20:34, and senior Tristan Laurencio was 13th in 20:41.

Among the top 20 finishers, SCH had senior Noah Shoup (14th; 20:45) and freshman Matthew Miles (17th; 21:19), and Penn Charter paraded in junior Jordan Steinhouse (15th; 21:00), sophomore John Davis (16th; 21:04), juniors Harrison Drebin (18th; 21:28) and Christopher Thomas (19th; 21:35), and senior Christopher Johnson (20th; 21:38).

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