Liberty’s Frank, Palisades’ Smigo repeat
The course was different. His coach is different. The race setup was different.
Of course, most everything in the Year 2020 is different.
The final result, though, remained the same for Liberty’s Cole Frank.
Frank, a senior, secured his second consecutive District 11 Class 3 A individual title during Tuesday’s boys championship meets held at Blue Mountain Ski Resort in Lower Towamensing Township. Frank completed the course in 17-minutes, 31.9-seconds.
Palisades sophomore Thomas Smigo captured his second district title in two years, claiming the Class A crown in 18:12.5. Saucon Valley’s Matthew Chaikowsky, a senior, won the Class 2A race — his first D11 title — in 17:48.3.
The Parkland boys prevailed in a closely contested team competition in Class 3A. Coach Stephen Ott’s Trojans totaled 84 points to edge out second-place Southern Le high, which compiled 85. Nazareth took third and Freedom finished fourth, both with 87 points.
Northwestern Lehigh claimed the 2A team title with 48 points. Weatherly won in Class Awith 39 points.
The top five individual finishers and the team champion in each classification qualifies for next week’s PIAA championships, scheduled for Nov. 7 in Hershey.
Frank-ly a first
Frank called the 3.1-mile course, a setup
through and up-and-down the ski slopes, the hardest he’s ever run.
District 11 officials were left scrambling to find a suitable course for the championships when DeSales University, the site of last season’s meet, became unavailable due to COVID-19 coronavirus restrictions. Other options also were unavailable.
That left the two-day championship meet —the girls will compete on Wednesday—at Blue Mountain.
Frank ran the second of two heats in the Class 3A race. His time of 17:31 was six seconds faster than that of Northampton’s Zeke Co ly er, who went 17:39 in the first heat.
Freedom’s Alex Heidemann took third (17:40.3), Southern Lehigh’s Alex Kane was fourth (17:40.6) and Southern Lehigh’ s Dominik Lisicky finished fifth (17:51).
“I came out here looking to defend my crown from last year and I got the job done ,” said Frank, who was 18 th overall in 3 A at last year’s state championships and is running for his third coach in three years at Liberty.
“I wasn’t too happy with my time but credit to Zeke Colyer, Alex Kane and the two Freedom boys; they all did an awesome job. Overall, I’m super proud of myself for coming out here and fighting this battle.”
Frank felt that running the race in heats and on anew course added several levels of uncertainty.
“The first heat they went out in 17:38 so I had that number in my head,” he said. “It’s definitely different running in the second heat. I had no one to run with the whole time. It’s a great experience to run here, though. It helps your mental side and makes you a better runner overall.”
Smigo shines
Palisades’ Smigo added the Class A gold to his medal collection after he won the 2A crown a season ago. (Palisades dropped down to Class A this year, its first of the two-year cycle.)
S mi go bested team mate Mitchell Campbell by 42 seconds, as well as last season’ s Class A champ, senior Scotty Zoscin of Weatherly, by 53 seconds. Moravian Academy earned second place overall with 70 team points; Palisades took third with 84.
“I think this year is a bit different,” Smigo said, “because obviously the course is different so it took time to adjust to the terrain. And our team had a real good shot to win it so I had motivation to push harder.”
Smigo, who won his second Colonial League gold last week, will be one of the favorites to claim the PIAA Class A championship at states.
“I just want togo out there and try to win ,” he said .“Right now I think I have the fastest timein [Class A] in thestate. I feel like if I can run anywhere as well as I ran at leagues, I’ll have a good shot.”
Champ Chaikowsky
A week ago, Saucon Valley’s Chaikowsky suffered a heartbreaking second-place finish behind Smigoat the Colonial League championships. Smigo edged Chaikowsky by a second.
Both runners agreed that that race was tougher, mentally and physically, than this week’s.
Chaikowsky acknowledged his first title postseason title was special.
“It feels great,” hesaid. “Coming through that line at the end, I just wanted to make sure that I got there in a good time. My expectation was that I wanted to make it to states. To be able to win, it was a thought but my goal was really on making it to states.”
Northwestern’s Samuel Bower placed second in 17:55 and Blue Mountain’s Colin Phipps was third in 18:17.
Talkin’ team titles
Parkland’s top finisher took eighth place but the Trojans prevailed in 3A thanks to a tight pack.
Senior Ben Esquieres led that pack at 18:39, freshman Paul Abeln took 11 th (18:48), senior Jose Beltrame was12th(18:56), sophomore Brady Hoffman 26th (19:17) and junior Cameron Price 27th (19:18).
“I wasn’t sure which way it was going to go,” Ott said. “I was trying to figure it out, then I said let’s let it up to the [officials in
the] tent and let them figure it out since they’re the scorers. I knew it was close, I didn’t realize there were four teams so close.
“Wewere expecting to run well. We said we didn’t know if people thought we’d be in it, but we knew we’d be in it. We were prepared. Ben led the pack for us all year and our boys stayed tight. That’s how you win. They followed the plan and took care of business,” Ott said.
Northwestern Lehigh easily won the Class 2 A team title, finishing 32 points ahead of Blue Mountain.
The top five for coach Chris Stitzel’s Tigers were Bower, sophomore Matthew Santana in fourth (18:18), junior Cole Chukoskie in sixth (18:29), junior Nathan Vincent in 14th (19:09) and senior Randal Zack in 23rd (19:48).
DISTRICT 11 CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS (At Blue Mountain Ski Resort) *- qualified for PI A A championships
BOYS
Class3A
Teamscores: 1. *Parkland 84, 2. Southern Lehigh 85, 3. Nazareth 87, 4. Freedom 87, 5. Northampton 94,6. Emma us 141,7. Liberty 165, 8. Easton 186, 9. Stroudsburg 203, 10. Pleasant Valley 278.
Individual finishers: 1. *Cole Frank (Lib) 17:31.9, 2. *Zeke Colyer (Nor) 17:39.0, 3. *Alex Heidemann (Fre) 17:40.3, 4. *Alex Kane (SL) 17:40.6, 5. *Dominik Lisicky (SL) 17:51.9, 6. OwenNahf(Nor) 18:09,7.Anthony Kositz (Naz) 18:35, 8. *Ben Esquieres (Par) 18:39, 9. Jack Hollar(PME) 18:42, 10.Alex Hume(Fre) 18:45, 11. *Paul Abeln (Par) 18:48, 12. *Josh Beltrame (Par) 18:56, 13. Nathan Reish (Str) 19:01, 14. Cameron Koch (Naz) 19:02, 15.John
Riley (Naz) 19:03, 16.Jon Breslin (Nor) 19:06.6, 17.AdamKollgaard (Naz) 19:09, 18.Anthony Clinton (SL) 19:11.2, 19.Joe Bauer(Fre) 19:11.7, 20. Eli White (Fre) 19:14.
Class2A
Teamscores: 1. *Northwestern Lehigh 48, 2.Blue Mountain 80,3.Notre Dame-GP
116, 4. Bangor128, 5. Central Catholic 152, 6. Palmerton 172, 7. East Stroudsburg North 218, 8.Wilson 219, 9. SauconValley 227, 10. North Schuylkill 233.
Individual finishers :1.* Matthew Ch aikows ky (SV) 17:48.3, 2. *Samuel Bower(NW) 17:55.3, 3. *Colin Phipps (BM) 18:17.5, 4. *Matthew Santana (NW) 18:18.2, 5. *Justin Williams (NS) 18:26.3, 6. *Cole Chukoskie (NW) 18:29, *7. CodySmith (NDGP) 18:31,*8.Justice Scheidel (BM) 18:45, 9.Jack Flynn (NS) 18:46, 10.Jacob Huber(SV) 18:49,11.Cameron Stout (Ban) 18:56, 12.TrevorWeidman (Ban) 19:05, 13. OwenHibell (Palm) 19:09.14. NathanVincent (NW) 19:09, 15. Declan Fitzgerald (NDGP) 19:22, 16. OwenFitzgerald (NDGP) 19:23, 17. Jacob Demchak(CC) 19:33,18.James Freeman(CC) 19:34,19.JaredThomason(NL) 19:35, 20. Ryan Bailor (JT) 19:44.
ClassA
Teamscores: 1. *Weatherly 39, 2. Moravian Academy 70,3. Palisades 84,4. Shenandoah Valley 86, 5. Minersville 101, 6. Marian 147, 7. Nativity 178, 8. Schuylkill Haven 221, 9.Tri-Valley 235,10.Mahanoy244.
Individual finishers: 1.*ThomasSmigo(Pali) 18:12.5, 2. *Mitchell Campbell (Pali) 18:54.1, 3. *Scotty Zoscin (Wea) 19:05.2, 4. *Joshua Deremer(PA) 19:25.0, 5. *Michael Berger (Wea) 19:29.9, 6. *SamCarter(MA) 19:30, 7. *Landon Boyle (Min) 19:32, 8.Astin Daniels (SH) 19:34, 9. *Frankie Willis (Wea) 19:35, 10.Joelvi Nunez(SV) 19:40, 11. *Jacob Parker (Wea) 19:41, 12. Liam McDowell (Pali) 19:48, 13. MasonTran (MA) 19:49,14.Theo Urban (MA) 20:09, 15. *Ricky Ray (Wea) 20:13, 16. Connor Stasulli (SV) 20:25, 17. Diego Olayo (SV) 20:29, 18.Keegan Dube (Min) 20:32,19.Educ Zamudio (SV) 20:39,20.DrewMariani (MA) 20:43.