QV’s Wicker defends WPIAL cross country title

By: HSSN Staff
Friday, October 26, 2018 | 3:54 PM

Quaker Valley junior Annie Wicker lived up to expectations and captured her second consecutive WPIAL Class AA girls cross country championship Thursday at Cal U (Pa.).

She ran to a time of 19 minutes, 18 seconds, 28 seconds ahead of a field that included runner-up finisher Gionna Quarzo, a junior from Brownsville.

Wicker also punched her ticket to the PIAA championships Nov. 3 in Hershey.

Quakers teammate Anna Cohen, a freshman, made her WPIAL debut and placed ninth overall (20:50) and also qualified for states.

On the boys side, QV junior Daniel Ford raced to third (17:06) in boys AA and earned a berth to the PIAA meet.

Sewickley Academy senior Henry Meakem placed 21 ^st in boys Class A with at time of 18:12 and qualified for states.

Senior Nella Tsudis paced Sewickley Academy in the girls Class A race with a 41 ^st -place finish in a time of 23:09.

Sewickley Academy girls tennis advances

The Sewickley Academy girls tennis team advanced to the PIAA Class AA semifinals Friday morning with a 4-0 victory over District 3 runner-up Lancaster Catholic in the quarterfinals at the Hershey Racquet Club.

Evelyn Safar won 6-0, 6-1 at No. 1 singles, and Christina Walton triumphed 6-2, 6-3 at No. 3 singles.

At No. 1 doubles, it took Victoria Keller and Alina Mattson three sets to score the win. They lost the first set 4-6, but rallied to take the next two, 6-2, 6-3.

Emma DeSantis and Allena Purewal claimed victory at No. 2 doubles, 6-2, 6-0.

The No. 2 singles match involving Simron Bedi did not finish because the overall match had been clinched in the Panthers’ favor.

Sewickley Academy now will play District 1 champ Lower Moreland on Saturday at 8 a.m. Knoch also advanced to the semifinals with a win Friday morning and will play again Saturday at 9:30.

The state title match is slated for Saturday at 3:30 p.m.

QV football close to clinching third

The Quaker Valley football team is securely in the WPIAL 3A playoffs, and it can clinch third place in the Tri-County West Conference with a win at home against South Park or a Central Valley loss to Aliquippa.

The Quakers and Central Valley both are 4-2 in the conference, and QV owns the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Aliquippa (6-0) and Beaver Falls (5-1) are the top two teams in the conference and have clinched home games in the first round.

Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Michael at mlove@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MLove_Trib.

Tags: Quaker Valley, Sewickley Academy