by Tom Utescher

On a cool afternoon conducive to cross country running, the Mount St. Joseph Academy varsity seven ran hard to gain an extra place or two, and their efforts paid off with a first-place finish at last Monday’s 2018 Athletic Association of Catholic Academies championships.

At the customary venue for the meet, Tyler State Park in Bucks County, the Magic scored 57 team points, besting Villa Maria Academy, with 64 points and 2017 champion Villa Joseph Marie, with 68. Two of the top five finishers belonged to the Mount in senior Megan Ciasullo, who was second in 19 minutes and 32 seconds, and junior Lauren Ehnow, who was fourth in 20:42.

Not far behind the Villa Joe team was 2016 champ Nazareth Academy, which scored 71 points to garner fourth place. As a freshman last year, Gwynedd Mercy’s Kelly Murray was the individual winner, and this year both she and the Monarchs’ team (102 points) placed fifth. In sixth and seventh were St. Basil (153) and Merion Mercy (186), while the eighth league member, Sacred Heart Academy, had two athletes compete as individuals.

The other scoring runners for Mount St. Joe’s were sophomores Annie Lemelin (15th overall; 21:38) and Olivia Millevoi (17th; 21:48), and junior Bridget Orr (23rd; 22:22). Ciasullo was the only MSJ senior in the varsity race; the Magic’s number six was junior Erin Shea Mirabella (30th; 23:03) and the number seven was freshman Lauren Maher (35th; 23:54).

Mount St. Joseph, which last won the league title in 2013, finished fourth as a team at both the 2016 and 2017 AACA meets. As in the 2018 race, Ciasullo was the Magic’s lead runner last fall, coming in eighth. Ehnow had been 18th overall and second for the Magic as a freshman in 2016, but last year she had an off day at the AACA’s, slipping to 34th. Lemelin and Millevoi also participated in the 2017 meet, coming in 24th and 26th, respectively.

The Mount posted a 5-1 record in AACA dual meets this fall, while a seventh contest, scheduled with Villa Joseph Marie, had to be cancelled. Although the Mounties lost their opener on the road against Villa Maria in early September, the score was relatively close. Over the next few weeks, Mount head coach Kitty McClernand pointed out, the Magic placed ahead of Villa at several large invitationals that both teams attended.

Villa Maria senior Sarah Raubenheimer won last week’s AACA championship race in 19:26, and Ciasullo snagged the runner-up spot six seconds later, keeping the Mount within one point of the Hurricanes. There were then some relatively long gaps in the finishing procession as Alina LaForest of St. Basil took third in 20:15, and the Magic’s Ehnow arrived in 20:42. Importantly, Ehnow came in ahead of Gwynedd’s Murray and was two spots ahead of Villa Maria number two Hope Brown, who was sixth in 20:55.

Villa Joseph Marie put itself in the mix with runners capturing eighth, 11th and 14th place, but then the two Magic sophomores helped keep both “Villa” teams at bay. In 15th, Lemelin came in seven seconds in front of Villa Maria’s Caroline Bell, and the Mount’s Millevoi took 17th place three seconds ahead of the Villa Joseph Marie number four, Alyssa Austin.

The individual runners from Sacred Heart finished 12th and 19th overall, causing runners behind them to be bumped up in the team scoring.

Mount St. Joseph nailed down the team victory thanks to Orr, who placed 23rd overall to contribute 21 points in the team tally. She pushed across the line two seconds ahead of Villa Joe senior Katie Irelan, who finished second overall in 2017.

The other Mounties in the varsity race, Mirabella and Maher, will both be back next year. In the top spots, both the Mount and Villa will lose their number one runners, and while St. Basil’s young LaForest is a rising star in track and cross country, the Panthers don’t have much depth in distance.

This year, it’s on to the District 1 championships for Mount St. Joseph, where Ciasullo’s times up to this point put her in a strong position to qualify for the PIAA state meet.

The cross country squad was the third of the Mount’s six fall sports teams to win a Catholic Academies championship, joining golf and tennis.