High school XC teams prepare for District 3 meet

High school cross county teams in the region are gearing up for the Distrtict 3 M&T Bank Cross Country Championships this Saturday at Big Spring High School in Newville. If PennLive’s list of the top 20 times this season is any indication, Hempfield High School might take the championship.

For those who follow high school XC, the district meet’s location is new this year. From 2002 until last year, it was held at the former Parkview Golf Course near Hersheypark, and it was a monster course with killer hills that teams had to run all over again (on a slightly altered course) a week later for the state championships. This year, runners have a flatter course with a slight downhill finish at Big Spring High School. In fact, most district teams raced the course this season at the Ben Blosser Bulldog Invitational.

District 3 is comprised of the Mid Penn and Lancaster-Lebanon leagues and has about 120 schools. Both leagues had their championship races (Lancaster-Lebanon, Mid-Penn) in the past week, and if the results are any indication the competition will be stiff on Saturday. All eyes will be on the Hempfield boys team, which dominated the L-L race by placing 5 runners in the top 25. On an individual side, watch for Nathan Henderson, a junior from J.P. McCaskey who clocked a 15:50 to win the Blosser Invitational in September. He won last week’s league meet in 15:47.

The Mid-Penn certainly will be well represented by Carlisle’s Matt Wisner, who won the league meet in 16:04. Not far behind were Kyler Shea of Lower Dauphin (16:07), Nick Feffer of State College (16:08), Jared Kearns of Northern York (16:13), Alex Milligan of State College(16:16.5) and Morgan Cupp of Mechanicsburg (16:16.8).

On the girls side, Mid-Penn has the best times for the season, according to PennLive. That said, Manheim Township’s girls captured the regular season title and the win at the league meet.