Went to the Lancaster-Lebanon League cross country championships Tuesday afternoon at Ephrata Middle School. What a great course that is, and it was nice to see a pretty big crowd on hand. I filmed some video clips, and I should have a video package up and posted here, oh, Wednesday morning at some point. So stay tuned for that, won’t you. Meanwhile …
A tip of the cap to Elco junior Kayleigh Perry, who claimed the girls’ race in pretty dominating fashion.
She was with the lead pack from the start, and ran a great race, winning in 19:15 on a pretty warm, sticky afternoon — and on one of the hilliest courses in the league. Is hilliest a word, by the way? Ah, you get the picture. A lot of humps and bumps to contend with in Ephrata. But fair. Very fair.
A few notes to pass along …
1. Fantastic second-place finish (in 19:32) by Garden Spot sophomore Emily Martin, who missed a good chunk of this season while battling a bad case of mononucleosis (come to think of it, is there a good case of mononucleosis?). She came in as the defending league champ, and gutted it out for the silver this time around. Gutsy, gutsy performance there.
2. Sorry to see one of the girls’ pre-race favorites, Warwick’s Ally Mannon, pull up and walk off the course pretty early on in the race. She was running neck-and-neck with Perry over the first mile (they hit the 1-mile marker practically at the same time), but wasn’t feeling well (it was pretty warm) and she stopped. She was suffering from some leg ailments coming in, so that was a total bummer.
3. Hempfield’s Kevin Hull looked mighty impressive in his victory on the boys’ side, crusing to the gold in 16:25. Hull beat out a pair of Cedar Crest runners — Brent Balmer (16:50) and Alex Galli (16:55). Neat kid, Hull. Said he channels his spiritual side to get him through a race. He looked really good out there Tuesday. And for the first time since 2001, someone named ‘Miller’ or ‘McNally’ did not win the L-L League championship.
4. They are the champions — The top three finishers in the boys’ team event were separated by a grand total of seven points. Manheim Township won the crown (82), Cedar Crest was second (85) and Hempfield was third (89). Talk about razor close. … Race officials had to go to the sixth-runner tiebreaker to decide the girls’ team winner, and that was Warwick, which won the tiebreaker with Manheim Township. The Warriors and the Blue Streaks had 75 team points apiece.
5. Heart-tugger moment for me — There was a fella in an electric wheelchair sporting a purple Ephrata hat situated at the end of the finish line, where the runners come out of the chute and do any number of things (crash, vomit, drink plenty of fluids, hug a teammate, search for food, dispose of excess snot; great visuals, eh?). This guy was giving high-fives to every single kid (boys and girls) as they exited the chute area. It was very touching. And probably 99 percent of the kids coming through (most of them completely winded, out of gas and looking for a spot to fall over) stopped to give him a high-five. Just a cool moment; wanted to share.
6. Chips — No, no, not the potato variety. The L-L League went high tech on Tuesday, supplying every runner with an electronic chip, which they fastened to their shoestrings. An electronic timer was set up at the finish line, and when the runners hit the protective mat, it automatically (and electronically) registered his or her time. Pretty fancy. Lancaster Mennonite athletic director Mike Yoder told me that it went over pretty well and, more importantly, it didn’t cost the L-L League an arm and a leg (OK, maybe a leg). Only heard of one error, when a couple of kids got their chips mixed up. All in all, a much easier way to keep track of scoring. Gotta love the high tech stuff. Beautiful.
7. Up next … District 3 and PIAA championships at the former Parkview Golf Course in Hershey (buddy of mine used to be an assistant pro there, by the way). If Tuesday’s participants thought Ephrata Middle School’s course was hilly … watch out.
