XC has strong showing at St. Vincent
Both Penn State Fayette cross-country teams competed at the St. Vincent Invitational Saturday and head coach Joe Carei is seeing improvements.
"Our top five guys finished faster than our first guy last year at this course," he said. "We are certainly ahead of last year (with the men) while we had the women run as a group to gel and get used to running a college meet.
"This meet had mostly Division II schools and a couple of Division I schools."
The men finished fourth with 147 points as Mitchell Minda (Elizabeth, PA/Elizabeth Forward HS) finished in 29:43.5 to lead the eight-man contingent.
Nyoah Marteny (Perryopolis, PA/Frazier) timed in at 29:50.61, Joe O'Connell (West Mifflin, PA/West Mifflin HS) clocked in at 29:59.06, Michael Elliott (Clarksville, PA/Beth-Center HS) finished in 30:14.8, Ben Witt (Uniontown, PA/Uniontown HS) ran in 30:30, Arlo Helms (Connellsville, PA/Connellsville HS) completed in a time of 31:05.4, Drew Erdman (Greensburg, PA/Greensburg Salem HS) clocked in at 31:12.32 and Stephen Lacek (Fort Cherry, PA/Fort Cherry HS) finished in 32:17.
"The course is pretty tough, but the men ran smart and kept a tight pack," Carei said. "Although I would like us closer than 47 seconds with our first through fifth runners at the end, it is still commendable."
The women's team finished in 12th.
"It was great to see the women getting used to running a college meet," Carei said.
Casey Falcon (Beth-Center, PA/Beth-Center HS) paced the women in 31:27 with Kira Nicholson (Scottdale, PA/Southmoreland HS) finishing exactly one minute behind her.
Meghan Czekaj completed in a time of 32:39, Haley Miller timed in at 34:57 and Pam McKnight finished in a time of 36:52.
Fayette returns to action on Saturday, September 21 when it heads to PSU Mont Alto for a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference meet.
For more information on the team, go to https://www.psfathletics.com/sports/xc/index.