Boys athlete of the week
The Post-Gazette’s top male performer from the past seven days
The past week: The Blue Devils junior became the first male runner from his school in 18 years to win the PIAA Class 3A individual cross country title. He is the fifth Mt. Lebanon distance runner to take the crown, joining Bob Lyle (1953), John Stobie (1960), Tom Giordano (1962) and Shawn Cavanaugh (2000). He is also the first WPIAL athlete to win the state Class 3A crown since Ryan Gil of North Allegheny in 2010.
Check this out: Anderson finished second in the WPIAL Class 3A finals behind North Allegheny junior Dan McGoey when he ran the course at California (Pa.) University in 16 minutes 20 seconds. He finished 19 seconds back. In the state championships in Hershey, he cut his time on what is reputed to be a tougher course by 17 seconds, finishing in 16:03 and beating the Tigers’ Zachary Kinne by four seconds and McGoey by six. He is getting looks from several colleges, including Georgetown, Syracuse and Penn State. How did you get into running? I
started in seventh grade, mainly because my sister (Moira) was running. She is two years older than me, but had ran and I watched her. I was playing soccer, too, and then I just tried running. What is it that you like about it? Mainly that it’s the purest of sports in that it’s you versus yourself and not you versus the guy next to you. What do you think about when you’re on a long training run? If it’s not with the team and having conversations, running is so mental and keeping yourself hyped up and mentally focused.
I like focusing on my goals and stuff and concentrate on that. What was the turnaround like going from finishing second in the WPIAL to winning the
state title? Before WPIALs, the goal was definitely to win a WPIAL title and a state title. But at WPIALs, I didn’t have as great a race and a finish, so in the whole week leading up to states, I was just focusing and making sure I did everything right with training and staying healthy and mentally getting ready to go out there and win. What’s the first thing you did after you won? I went around hugging my coach, my parents and my teammates.
With training like that you have to watch your diet. Have you splurged since winning? Yeah, definitely. The past couple of days, I’ve been treating myself well.
With what? A lot of ice cream. A lot of good food. I’ve had pizza and I want a soufflé.
What kind of music do you listen to when you run? I don’t actually. I just train with teammates and have conversations.