Impressive X-C results for Mount leader, Penn Charter team

by Tom Utescher
Posted 10/12/22

After closing out the month of September at Lehigh University's 48th annual Paul Short Run, several area cross country teams were back in action last Saturday.

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Impressive X-C results for Mount leader, Penn Charter team

Posted

After closing out the month of September at Lehigh University's 48th annual Paul Short Run, several area cross country teams were back in action last Saturday at a well-established meet in the Philadelphia area, the William Tennent Invitational.

It was the second individual victory in a row for Mount St. Joseph Academy junior Ella Woehlcke, who won last weekend's race at William Tennent High School in Warminster in 18 minutes and 7.9 seconds, roughly 28 seconds ahead of the second finisher. Fifth in the race was Penn Charter sophomore Alli DeLisi (19:12.10), and the Quakers finished 10th out of 23 teams, many from large public high schools. The Mount, which has been trying to fill the gaps left by the loss of three of last year's top five runners (to graduation), placed 13th in the team standings.

Both MSJ's Woehlcke and the Penn Charter team had excelled the week before at Paul Short, where they competed in the "White" race for smaller schools. Woehlcke's winning time of 17:35.90 became the new Pennsylvania number one time for the season, better than the winning number in the Brown (large school) race at Lehigh.

She ran a PR there, and said "It was exciting. I saw the race before ours [the Brown race] and I wanted to try and beat their time."

Meanwhile, Penn Charter's impressive pack running made the Quakers the winning team in Paul Short White. With a total of 172 points, they were 26 points ahead of runner-up Neshaminy High School. DeLisi, who trained with the Mount's Woehlcke over the summer, led PC with a 13th-place showing overall (19:05.0) out of 370 competitors. The other scorers for the Quakers were sophomore Alex Jaffe (31st) and her twin sister Sam (40th), junior Grace Neuwirth (55th) and senior Veronica Lentz (64th).

Last Saturday, sunny, cool weather greeted the runners at William Tennent. Woehlcke went out quickly off the starting line and would run alone for most of the race.

"Last year I didn't go out as fast," she related, "but this year I'm trying to do that and then see what happens, see if I can just hold it the rest of the race. I try some different things."

Comparing the Tennent course with the Lehigh circuit, she noted, "It was similar, but it had some hills and Lehigh has no hills."

After Penn Charter's DeLisi, the next area runner was senior Maggie Murphy, the Mount number two. She placed 44th overall in 21:15.20, and just a few spots behind was Charter's Neuwirth (48th; 21:20.50). PC was missing the Jaffe twins, who are also excellent squash players and were wielding their racquets at an out-of-town tournament.

Rounding out the scoring for the Quakers were Lentz (62nd; 21:43.80) and freshmen Michaela Poland (95th; 22:52.90) and Natalia Modzeiewshi (123rd; 23:38.60).

Mount St. Joseph's total was completed by junior Mary Kate Seiberlich (100th; 22:57.80), freshman Lily McMullin (104th; 23:05.50), and sophomore Morgan Smith (133rd; 23:57.50).

One place ahead of Seiberlich was the first finisher for Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, senior Grace Hannigan (22:57.40). Freshman Grian O'Connor (129th; 23:51.60) was the number two for the SCH Blue Devils, who came in 23rd in the team standings.

The Penn Charter and SCH runners will perform at the Inter-Ac League championships on October 17, and the Mount will race in the Catholic Academies meet the following day.

Woehlcke said that her general goal the remainder of the season will be, "to try and get PR's on the rest of the courses I run."

Given the way the Mountie frontrunner has been performing this fall, that's a goal within reach.