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McDonald teams win Spartan meet
By GREG GULAS
Boardman
The McDonald High boys and girls cross country teams always seem to enjoy success at the annual Spartan Invitational.
For the first time in this the 25th anniversary of the event, both can boast that they literally “ran off” with the title in the same year.
“It’s a great feeling when both teams can win their respective events in the same year,” McDonald boys coach Chris Rupe said. “We just try to keep something going and a lot of that is due to the fact that both our kids and the many parents in the community value cross country.
The McDonald boys took the Division III event with 84 points, narrowly outdistancing Delta High (90 points). The McDonald girls captured the Division III event with 85 points, topping runner-up St. Thomas Aquinas (113) by 28 points.
“I can’t say that we were expecting to win it all,” McDonald girls coach Mike Richards said. “We did feel, however, like we had a good chance to win if we ran well.”
The Blue Devils boys were paced by Patrick Kunkel (sixth), Kyle Joynes (ninth), Jeff Kunkel (14th), Bobby Johnson (25th) and Nick Rees (30th).
The McDonald girls were paced by Sarah Jones (seventh), Kenzie Srock (13th), Abby D’Amore (24th), Katie Joseph (25th) and Jamie Stellmar (29th).
“It’s easy to see why both McDonald’s squads are always in the mix,” meet co-director Dave Pavlansky said. T”hey have excellent kids and are coached exceptionally well.
“We changed the course a little this year in that we straightened out the finish line, making it a 200-meter downhill to the finish line,” Pavlansky said. “With short grass, dry weather and cooler temperatures early on, we saw some excellent running today as well as a new meet record.”
The record that fell was the Division III boys 5k mark as Berkshire’s Matt Pelletier ran the course in 16:02.20, eclipsing the 16:15.15 which was set by Brendan Robinson of Western Reserve Academy in 2001.
In any other year, runner-up Colin Fisher (16:04.95) of Delta and third-place finisher Nick Gliha (16:13.96) of Garfield Heights could have won the event while setting a new meet mark.
“It was a really rough race the first mile or so, but once I got warmed up, the course really wasn’t so bad,” Pelletier said.
Ally Markovich (19:27.53) of Gates Mills Hawken, who placed second a year ago, won the girls Division III event while leading her team to a third-place finish.
Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary captured the boys Division II event with Adrian Ross (16:09.50) of Chillicothe Unioto High taking top honors.
The Irish also won the girls Division II title as well while St. Clairsville’s Jamie Perzanowksi (18:48.35) earned top laurels.
Poland High posted the best area finish in Division II, placing eighth in the 37-team field.
“We came here with the hopes of running fast times so we’ll see where they stack up against the rest of the field,” Bulldogs coach Kim Grisdale said.
North Allegheny’s Ryan Gill (15:58.46) helped his Tigers (37 points) squad to the boy’s Division I title, easily topping runner-up Hudson (156) by 119 points.
Massillon Jackson (244 points) and No. Canton Hoover (265 points) were the top Federal League finishers in the event.
Hudson High’s Caroline Sauers (19:10.93) took girls Division I top honors with her squad (113) finishing fourth to North Allegheny’s 92 points.
North Canton Hoover (101) and Brunswick (111) finished second and third respectively in what was the closest top-four finish of the three division races.
Co-director Denise Gorski was pleased with this year’s record-setting numbers.