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St. Joes, Colwell earn top honors; Baublitz finishes sixth at PIAA State XC championships

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By BRIAN CARSON

HERSHEY – Penns Valley standouts Colton Sands and Brendan Colwell finished 1-2 in the boys’ Class A race to highlight the action at the PIAA Cross Country Championships Saturday at the Parkview Golf Course.

Sands and Colwell, both juniors, finished first and second last week at districts and repeated the feat at Hershey, besting the field by a wide margin.

Sands crossed the finish line first with a time of 15:56. Colwell followed in second at 16:05. The duos efforts helped the Rams squad to a fifth-place finish in the team race with 166 points. St. Joseph’s came in 12th with 264 points.

The St. Joseph’s girls’ team of Kate Youngmark, Kathleen Simander, Brandi Carmack, Myah Campbell, and Camryn Ebybecame the first program in PIAA history to win a team title without qualifying at districts.

Led by Youngmark, who earned a medal by placing tenth with a time of 20:11, the Wolves scored 93 points to capture the Class A championship from fellow District 6 member Marion Center.

In the Class 3A girls’ race, State College freshman Marlee Kwasnica finished 17th with a time of 19:09. The Little Lion squad came in second with 152 points, 15 behind champion North Allegheny.

Junior Brady Bigger ran the course in 16:23 to earn a medal for State College by finishing in 20th place. The Little Lion boys were ninth with 232 points.

Mifflin County/Juniata

Juniata senior Garrett Baublitz earned his third PIAA medal with a time of 16:25, good enough for sixth place in the boys’ 2A race.

Baublitz, fresh off his fourth district title, came in the number one seed but didn’t have the legs to make up the difference at the end. He was a PIAA runner-up last season.

In the boys’ Class 3A contest, Mifflin County’s Brayden Harris, fourth last year, couldn’t battle back from an injury-plagued 2019, placing 35th with a time of 16:41.

Teammate Chase Sheaffer made his fourth trip to Hershey his best, running the course in 17:18, the senior’s top time on the Hershey course.

Sophomore Kylee Cubbison let everyone in the state know she is a force to reckon with after crossing in 19:35 to finish in 36thplace, just 11 placements shy of a medal. Cubbison took up running only eight months ago.

Teammate Julia Montgomery capped her senior season with a time of 21:49 in her first appearance on the Parkview Course.

Individual race winners for the boys included Mount Lebanon’s Patrick Anderson (Class 3A), Dylan Throop of General McLane (Class 2A) and Sands. For the girls, the victors were Moon’s Mia Cochran (Class 3A), Northern’s Marlee Starliper (Class 2A) and Haley Hamilton of OLSH (Class A).

Starliper won her third championship after a second-place finish as a freshman. For Anderson, this is title number two.

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