Friday, October 16, 2015
Boardman’s Ethan Schwendeman and Chris Butler raced to fourth and fifth place finishes out of 149 competitors to lead the Spartans to a second place finish at The Mahoning County Cross Country Championship on Sept. 29 at a rainy and muddy Austintown Township Park.
Boardman finished behind state ranked and host school Austintown Fitch.
Poland was third overall with Canfield, West Branch, South Range, Ursuline, Jackson-Milton, Sebring and Lowellville completing the teams that ran. Cardinal Mooney, Western Reserve, Springfield and Struthers did not field enough athletes to qualify in the team standings.
The Spartans placed seven runners in the top 30 and placed three of the top 15 scoring spots to earn runners up; following Schwendeman and Butler was junior Nathaniel Ams in 14th place in a time of 18:22.
They were followed by junior Nick Digiacomo in 21st in a time of 18:38, sophomore Mark Moradian 22nd overall in 18:42, sophomore Luke Hetzel in 27th place at 18:51, and senior Adam Deeley in 28th in a time of 18:51.
“We really wanted to challenge Fitch today,” said Spartan head coach John Phillips. “The course conditions really made it difficult to run fast, but I am very satisfied with our effort and improvement the last two weeks since the Spartan Invitational.
Fitch has a team ranked anywhere from 10th to 15th in Ohio this year, and we need to keep pace with them in order to make a run at districts.”
Setting new personal bests at the Austintown course were Hetzel, sophomore Tony Saab at 20:53 and freshman Andrew Beichner at 20:59.