November 2, 2006 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Penn Charter boys second, Germantown Academy girls third at Inter-Ac meet
by TOM UTESCHER

Main Line runners made themselves at home on Chestnut Hill Academy’s 3.1 mile cross country course last Monday, when CHA hosted the Inter-Ac League championship meet for both boys and girls.

For the girls, the league championship is still determined through a formula which mixes results from dual meets and the championship race, but here it was a moot point as Notre Dame Academy capped a 6-0 dual-meet campaign by winning Monday’s event in convincing fashion. Freshman Stephanie Powers won the race for the Irish in 20 minutes, 19.7 seconds, and NDA placed four other runners in the top nine to wind up with 24 points, easily outpacing runner-up Agnes Irwin, with 59 points, and 2005 champ Germantown Academy, which finished third with 64.

The boys race that followed was for all the marbles, as dual meet results don’t count in the title chase. Still, the outcome of the league meet followed the dual-meet rankings exactly. Four Malvern runners in the top seven were led by junior Brian Fulton, who won the event in 16 minutes and 40 seconds to help the Friars clinch their fourth straight Inter-Ac championship.

The runner-up, with a time of 17:16, was Penn Charter senior Dylan Issacson, and the Quakers also finished second in the team tally, with 61 points to Malvern’s 30. CHA junior Ned Cunningham crossed the line third in 17:30, but with a team total of 121 points, the Blue Devils were outdone by third-place Episcopal Academy (65) and fourth-place Haverford School (81). The GA Patriots were sixth in the meet, with 136 points.

Penn Charter, which had shared a 4-2 Inter-Ac dual meet record with both Irwin and GA, had sophomore Lexi Glassman take eighth place (22:06).

Sophomore Paige Cross was the first finisher for the Patriots, landing in the tenth spot in 22:29, and the next runners to cross the line were two of her teammates, Olivia Mann and Ali Greenberg.

Penn Charter ended up fourth in the team standings with 102 points, and was followed by Episcopal (111), Springside (177), and Baldwin (185).

Springside, which just began competing in the sport this fall, was missing its top runner, junior Macrina Cooper-White, and an injury had taken sophomore Devon Winter out of the Lions’ line-up, as well. The first of the Lions to complete the course last Monday was tenth-grader Teghan Boyle, who was 23rd in 24:32 while senior Emily Winant was 35th in 25:52. The other Springsiders in the race were freshman Stephanie Sherman (37th/26:54), senior Emma McClafferty (38th/27:47), and junior Christina Sfedu (43rd/28:57).

In last year’s boys meet, Malvern Prep took the first four places. The first three Friars were seniors, and the fourth was Fulton, who came back this year to dust the field in the 2006 event, beating his closest rival by 36 seconds. He was less than five seconds off the course record time of 16:35.6 established by fellow Friar Brian Duffy in 2005.

With under a mile to go, CHA’s Cunningham was running second, but Charter’s Isaacson was closing in. The Quakers senior (who placed 11th in 2005) forged ahead with less than half-a-mile remaining and captured the runner-up spot. For Cunningham, who ran 15th in 2005 (18:19), this year’s third-place finish was the best result for a CHA runner since Matt Henry came in second back in 1992.

After Cunningham, Chestnut Hill had four runners concentrated in the 19-minute bracket. Sophomore Mike Rhoads was 24th in 19:15, senior Pete Cardoso was 27th in 19:37, and sophomore Mike Fitzkee (33rd) and senior Mike Christianson (34th) shared a time of 19:55. Rounding it out for CHA were the freshman duo of Justin Purnell-Anglin (39th/20:39) and Ryan Ansel (40th/20:40). Purnell-Anglin had replaced ailing junior Pete Miller in the Blue Devils’ line-up.

One of Germantown Academy’s top athletes, junior Elliot Rhodes, did not run at Monday’s championships. The Patriots had junior Craig Burnett come in 17th in 18:53, followed by senior Max Stein (25th/19:21) and junior Mark Mullen (28th/19:43).