Senior Liam O'Connor adds Catholic state title to Alexandria championship, above, and a third place in the prestigous WCAC championships held at Lake Fairfax during Saturday's mini-blizzard.
The Cardinals cross country teams had a busy week, running in the Catholic state championships in Norfolk on Wednesday, then braving winter weather conditions at the WCAC championships on Saturday.
Senior Liam O’Connor led the boys to their third straight Catholic state championship while winning the overall individual championship. It marked the second consecutive year Ireton has captured the individual title, with Michael Andersen winning the event last fall. Ireton’s girls were edged by PVI for the state championship, Peninsula Catholic grabbed second in the varsity boys category. It was the overall strong performance of the boys that made the difference however as the 4th and 5th place runners. Bishop Ireton’s girls ran a strong state race finishing second to the Panthers of Paul VI.
At the WCAC meet on a challenging weather day, winds in the teens, temperatures dipping to the mid-30’s, all the runners were slowed over a muddy, stream-swollen course. Good Counsel took the boys varsity championship, Gonzaga was second. O’Connell, PVI, and Ireton rounded out the top 5, DeMatha was 6th, St Johns 7th. O’Connor again paced the Cardinals with his third place finish, Nick Manzek was 21st, Jack Leyden, 26th, Conor Pearson 35th, Steven Gottlieb 44th and Stephen Washington 47th to round out the Alexandria school’s top five finishers.
On the girls’ side , Katie Necochea earned a 9th place in 23:09, but the “pack” of Cardinals finished within a minute of each other. Alex Georgi was 27th with a time of 25:34, Mary Johnson 28th, Margaret Nealon finished 30th and Catherine Babiec 32nd rounded up the scoring in 26:03. Close behind were a pair of freshmen, Natalie Irwin and Laitlin Luzik at 26:08 and 26:44 respectively.
Gonzaga swept the boys freshmen event with Connor Burke in 12th place in a time of 23:12 to set the pace for the Cardinals. In the JV event, Good Counsel swept the top 5 positions to win, Sean Pili and John Green coming in at 21:38/21:42 to grab a 22nd and 23rd places for Bishop Ireton.
In the girls “B” meet, Aubrey Gartlan’s 25:31 was good for a third place while junior Katarina Frustaci was 9th in a time of 26:20 as the Virginia Catholic schools dominated the team results. O’Connell won the event, PVI was second, Cardinals third with Elizabeth Seton, St Johns and Holy Cross following.
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