HERSHEY – The Bradford High girls cross country team finished in 19th place at Saturday’s PIAA Foundation meet in Hershey.
The Lady Owls finished with 477 points.
“All of the girls ran very hard,” BHS head coach Mark Kelley said. “This is a very tough course with lots of hills and some very good competition. We also had about 75-90 extra runners in our race due to those runners missing the first race. I think that congested the first mile of the race and we weren’t able to get out as well as we wanted too.”
The course is the same that the state championship meet in November will be run on.
“I was very pleased with all of the girls’ performances on Saturday,” Kelley said. “The times may not indicate that but they all ran very hard throughout the race. The course is very challenging, but the girls did not let that bother them. Hopefully we can come back down here in a few weeks for the state meet.”
Pacing the Lady Owls was Hannah Lary. Lary finished 68th in a time of 22:57.
“Hannah ran a great race. She ran against some great competition,” Kelley said. “This was her first big race with over 300 girls in her race so that can be intimidating. She is only going to keep getting better and looking towards this last four or five weeks of the season.”
Next in BHS was Bethany Bednez in 74th place with a time of 23:04.
“Bethany slowly moved up throughout the race,” Kelley said. “She, Hannah and Logan [Sunafrank] were no more than 10 seconds away from each other the entire race. She is so consistent with her races and I think she is going to have a very good month of October.”
Logan Sunafrank was 77th in 23:15 as the Lady Owls’ third finisher.
“Logan ran a great race,” Kelley said. “She came back well after her race last week and she is getting healthy. She went out well and really pushed the pace for Bethany and Hannah. She has been a great leader this year.”
Emma Webster was 139th in 25:02.
“Her time was not indicative of the way that she ran,” Kelley said. “Emma ran a very hard race and moved very well in the last mile. She has a very high level of determination and focus for her first year of running.”
Ellery Signor was 167th in 26:26 and Conner Gracey Dalton was 175th in 27:00. “These two ran very well,” Kelley said. “These two are going to play a big role in the development of the team in the coming weeks.”
The Lady Owls return to action Tuesday at Elk Catholic with Brookville.
