High school boys cross country: Several area teams, runners advance to state meet

The following article was posted on the News-Herald’s website. Congratulations Billy!

YOUNGSTOWN — It was a packed field during the boys D-I regional meet at Boardman on Oct. 29. As the runners traversed the first mile, no runner was able to break away.

Included in the pack of runners was Mentor sophomore Billy Dennison. While he was third at the first mile, he knew that he needed to preserve his position rather than worry about his time like he had all season.

Even though he dropped a few positions during the meet, he was able to nab a 10th-place finish with a time of 16:11.7.

While the rest of the Cardinals didn’t have their best meet, Dennison knew that he needed to keep with the pack to return to Columbus.

“I knew that it was important to get out clean because last year I got boxed and didn’t have the best race,” Dennison said. “I got out and it felt like an easy pace, while they broke away at the two-mile mark, I was able to hold my own and got 10th. It was a very different mindset as well with the maintaining rather than posting a fast time.”

While he is the only Mentor runner who advanced to state, Chardon took sixth to earn a team advancement. The Hilltoppers were led by the trio of Thomas Nelson (39th, 16:55.0), Colin Snider (40th, 16:57.3) and Taman Chokshi (45th, 17:00.0)

In the D-II race, West Geauga senior Daniel Kearns found himself as one of the lead runners along with Marlington junior Colin Cernansky. While Cernansky broke away to take first, Kearns was able to fend off the challenge of another Duke, senior Nash Minor.

While his consecutive victory streak was snapped, Kearns came into the meet not with the mindset of needing to add another win to his mantle. Rather, he had the goal of beating as many Marlington runners as possible.

“I looked at Milesplit and saw that three of them had posted better times than me this season,” Kearns said. “My goal was to get them all. I was able to get two of them and had a lot better result than a year ago. We knew we had to give everything with how difficult the region was.”

While other area runners like NDCL’s duo of Anthony Ciecierski (seventh, 16:38.3) and Brian Bates (20th, 16:52.9) as well as Hawken’s Nick Garcia-Whitko (15th, 16:49.1) also advanced to the state meet, it was the Hawks who also took a team spot with a third place finish.

The real battle was for the final team advancement position. Kenston came into the meet as a slight favorite over Bay.

Bombers junior Kyle McMahan took matters into his own hands and made sure that his team took the final advancement slot. He passed the first mile among the top 30 runners, but then started to make his move.

His runner-up finish helped the Wolverines secure fourth and advance to the state meet as a team for the second year in a row.

McMahan moved up to 16th position with a time of 16:50.1 and that proved to be the difference maker as Kenston edged Bay 190-202 for sixth place.

“I knew going in I needed to have a good start and that’s something that we’ve worked on,” McMahan said. “If I was strong during that first mile others would ease into the race and I could use that to my advantage. The whole season we knew we were going to have one last chance and we had the ability to be a state qualifying team.”

In the Division III race, Wickliffe senior Brady Pugh came home in 49th with an 18:25.7 to conclude his final race of his high school career.