Bishop Ireton cross country had a spectacular day in Newport News Tuesday. The Cardinals enjoyed a great day in cool weather at Newport News Park for the Virginia Catholic Schools State Championships as they made the long trip back to Northern Virginia boasting the state team title and individual champions. Bishop Ireton’s Michael Andersen laid claim the state title this year in a dramatic 16:36 victory, the first since Rob Sagar won it in 2005. His individual win also helped the Bishop Ireton boys claim their first state title since 1986. The girls varsity team finished second to Paul VI, while the both Ireton’s boys and girls JV squads cruised to first place finishes.
“I don’t know what it was, but all the kids were firing on all cyclinders, they really ran well. I don’t think there was an Ireton runner without a huge grin yesterday,” said an elated head coach, Brad Byrnes. “What I experienced as a coach down at Newport News was a total team effort. Everybody had a role and every role was played close to perfection. We knew coming in that it was not going to be easy to place top two but you couldn’t have written a better script for the day. Being part of what happened down there and just seeing how happy the team was afterward, it’s just amazing. It was probably the greatest single day in the history of this cross country program.”
Ireton’s Andersen battled Wyatt Haas of Benedictine and Blaize Johnson of PVI across the 3.1 mile course at the Newport News Park with the Cardinal pulling away in the final 200 yards for the dramatic win. The Cardinals edged host Peninsula Catholic 51 to 54 to win the crown, Roanoke Catholic finished third, PVI fourth. Billy Burns finished 6th at 17:22, Liam O’Connor’s 17:41 was good for 11th place, freshman Murphy Costigan was close behind at 17:48 in 14th. Sam Ferrara (17:57) grabbed a 19th spot while Nick Manzek (18:12) and Kevin Corcoran (18:13) secured 25th and 26th for the champions.
In the varsity girls meet, sophomore Aubrey Gartlan led the Cardinals to a second place team finish as her 21:02 time gave her a 6th place individually. Paul VI dominated the race with 4 runners in the top 5 positions to capture the title title with 23 points, the Cards 72 points was matched by host Peninsula Catholic, the Gartlan finish pushing Ireton into the second position. The key to Ireton’s strong finish, however, was the ‘gang’ of Hannah Lynn (22:22), Margaret Nealon (22:27), Ellie Marrin (22:33), and Maddie Zeigler (22:41) who finished 15th through 18th for the Cardinals. Erin Beckman (22:55) was 23rd and junior Bridget Reilly (23:05) rounded out the scoring for the cardinal and gold.
In the JV meets, Daniel Burns (18:55) and Connor Pearson (19:09) completed a 1-2 sweep for the Cardinals who took the JV boys title 34 to 39 over host Peninsula Catholic; Paul VI finished third. Andrew Baehre (21:07) grabbed 11th place, Jack Youngberg (21:21) was 14th, Josh Martini covered the course in 22:13 for 18th place, while Darcy Gomez clocked a 22:24, good for 20th. Alden Borio rounded out the scoring for Ireton with a 24th place finish at 27:46.
Ireton’s JV girls, current Alexandria city champions, were strong again in the Catholic state meet, defeating second place PVI 26-40. Katarina Frustaci’s 23:35 paced the winning Cardinals with a 4th place and freshman Lauren Freshwater was on Frustaci’s heels with a 5th place finish with a 23:57 time. Eva Irwin was shoulder-to-shoulder with Freshwater at 6th in an identical 23:57 time, and the Cardinals’ Mary Johnson was next across for 7th place in 24:02. Anna Chelak completed the impressive performance scoring a 10th place finish in a 24:57 time.
The Cardinals return to action this Saturday in the tough Washington Catholic Athletic Conference’s championship meet at Lake Fairfax Park beginning at 10am.
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