Herald roundup: Fox Chapel, SSA runners advance to PIAA meet

By: HSSN Staff
Sunday, October 29, 2017 | 11:00 PM

The WPIAL cross country championships were held Oct. 26 at Cooper's Lake Campground. In the Boys 3A meet, Fox Chapel's Christian Fitch finished in 10th place while teammate Ian Brown finished 22nd. Both will be heading to the PIAA championships. As a team, the boys finished in fifth place. “I thought we had a very good performance from the boys,” FC coach Tom Moul said.

In Girls 3A, the Fox Chapel girls finished in second place, 13 points behind Oakland Catholic. “The girls ran very well, but they just got beat.”

Three of FC coach Tom Moul's runners finished in the top 10. Caelan Miller was fourth, Annika Urban was sixth and Sareena Seeger finished eighth. Brooke Krally came in 17th and Grace Sasson finished 21st. The entire team qualified for the PIAA team championships.

In Girls 1A, Shady Side Academy's Jeanne Lauer finished seventh to qualify for states for the second consecutive year.

Football

Shady Side Academy saw their four game winning streak come to a close on Friday as they dropped a 37-21 non-conference game at Central Valley. Central Valley scored 24 points in the second quarter to take a 31-7 lead at the half. The Indians, who finished at 6-3 overall and 6-2 in the Allegheny Conference, didn't receive one of the wild card playoff berths in Class 3A.

“To be honest, we knew we were on the outside looking in as far as the playoffs,” SSA coach Chuck DiNardo said. “We did what we could from a conference standpoint and we knew we would need some help from events out of our control.”

• The playoff-bound Fox Chapel Foxes(6-4, 6-3) used their punishing ground game to throttle Plum(3-6), 42-14 in a non-conference matchup at Plum on Friday. Micah Morris rushed for 204 yards and a pair of TDs on 23 carries while QB Nick Gizzo gained 149 yards on 15 carries and scored on runs of 49 and 42 yards. He also tossed a 28 yard TD strike to Cole Waxler. Chase Villani scored on a 4-yard run and Andrew Jeffrey converted all six PATs. Morris finished the regular season with 1,246 yards and Gizzo ended up with 1,239.

The Foxes led by 21-7 at the half and they added 21 more points in the third quarter to invoke the mercy rule.

Tags: Fox Chapel, Shady Side Academy