Abington Heights used its superior depth to win both the boys and girls team titles Saturday in the 27th annual Lackawanna County Commissioners’ Cross Country Invitational at McDade Park.
Lakeland’s Scott Bevilacqua won the boys title, the Forest City sister combination of Katy and Rachel Korty finished 1-2 in the girls race, but no team was able to mount a challenge to the Comets, who are unbeaten in the Lackawanna League.
Abington Heights finished first in an eight-team boys field, 29-64 over Lakeland. Valley View was third with 78 points.
The seven Abington Heights runners that factored into the team scoring placed in the top 15 out of 84 runners.
Lakeland had three runners to the finish line at that point and none of the other teams had more than two.
Wallenpaupack was fourth with 114 points, followed by: Wyoming Valley West 117, Wyoming Area 163, Riverside 176 and Old Forge 232.
The Valley View girls managed to be more competitive with Abington Heights in terms of depth, but the Comets had their first three runners all in ahead of the Cougars.
Abington Heights won, 28-43, over Valley View with just five schools entering full teams.
Lakeland was third with 71, followed by Wallenpaupack’s 86 and Old Forge’s 139.
Bevilacqua completed the 3.1-mile course in 17:06.6 to win the boys race by more than 26 seconds.
Valley View’s Ethan Williams was second, nipping Alex Duffy of Abington Heights by three-tenths of a second.
Duffy was one of four straight Abington Heights runners. Gavin Ross, Sean Rooney and Nicholas Booth all followed him before Wyoming Area’s Patrick Branley placed seventh.
Lakeland’s Thomas Rohan and Dylan Kopa were eighth and ninth.
Alec Crouthamel from Wallenpaupack was 10th, followed by John Farrell, who completed the five-man Abington Heights team score with his 11th-place finish.
Pittston Area did not enter a full team, but Preston Klem finished 12th.
Freshman Katy Korty ran away with the team title in 19:08.0.
Rachel Korty was the only other runner to break 20 minutes, finishing in 19:59.3.
Western Wayne’s Madison Kammer was third in 20:32.8.
Because none of those three were part of full team entries, Abington Heights got the first, second and third spots in team scoring with Maia Arcangelo, Gianna Sabatini and Reese Morgan finishing fourth through sixth out of 74 runners.
Kaitlyn Newberry led Valley View with her seventh-place finish.
Morgan Lutz from Lakeland was eighth, followed by Morgan Anderson from Wallenpaupack, Samantha Adams from Valley View, Emma Horsley from Abington Heights and Gianna Godino from Valley View.
Laura Nebzydoski gave Forest City a third runner in the top 13.
The Commissioners’ Invitational also includes junior high competition.
Scranton and Elk Lake’s Kendall Jones were the winners in a boys field that featured 15 full teams and 137 individual entries.
Danville and Anna Pucilowski from Abington Heights were champions of a girls field that included 12 teams and 148 individuals.
Valley View placed Eva Kaszuba and Cora Castellani second and third while finishing second and leading the District 2 entries in junior high girls.
