Kiski Area’s Miller shines again at cross country sectional

By: Michael Love
Wednesday, October 4, 2023 | 8:06 PM

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Kiski Area senior Eliza Miller crushed her own Northmoreland Park course record Wednesday at the WPIAL Division 1, Section 4 cross country championship meet, finishing the 3.1-mile course in 18 minutes, 22.80 seconds.

It was her fourth individual section title in as many attempts. She surpassed by 19 seconds her previous best of 18:41 set at last year’s section meet.

“I didn’t think I would run this fast with it being this warm,” said Miller, who joined the field in tackling the course amidst temperatures in the low 80s.

“Coming into it, I was going to go out and use it as a training run. I don’t know if I was thinking about the record too much. But I just put it all out there to see what would happen. This is a great course to set you up for WPIALs. It’s a really good confidence boost for me that I continue to be where I want to be.”

Though Miller hoped to see Kiski Area claim a second team title in a row, Fox Chapel’s depth — fueled by all five of its top-scoring runners crossing the finish line 11th or better — carried it to its first team title since 2018.

Clara Kelley paced the Lady Foxes in fifth individually with a time of 21:25.80. Sara Michalak was right behind Kelley in sixth (21:40.50), and Cecilia Ressler took seventh (21:44.60).

“This is something the team has been working on for several years now,” Kelley said. “I was just so proud crossing that finish line knowing that we did everything we could. We had a phenomenal day today with all of our new freshmen, and our returning juniors and sophomores have really improved with training. I was just really happy I finished the way I wanted to finish.”

Fox Chapel’s closest head-to-head finish was with runner-up Kiski Area, 27-32. The Foxes went 5-0, and the Cavaliers were 4-1.

Franklin Regional’s Caroline Shirley secured an individual runner-up finish in a time of 19:34.70, a minute and 12 seconds behind Miller.

“It’s always good, as a runner, to stick to someone and keep pace, but then I saw Eliza go off,” Shirley said. “She’s incredible. She’s just an all-around great runner.”

Shirley said it was an important race for her as she hoped to bounce back from not being able to finish her race Sept. 15 at the Kiski Invitational on the Northmoreland course.

“I was really sick that day,” Shirley said. “I came back in this race really hoping to go for it. I felt I ran pretty well. It wasn’t the time that my coaches were hoping for, but they were still pretty happy. Tactically, it was pretty good. There’s still a couple of places in my race I can fix up. This will help me leading up to WPIALs, getting my mind in the right place.”

Rounding out the individual top 10 were Woodland Hills’ Annabel Johnson in third (19:51.40), Kiski Area’s Tatiana Holt in fourth (20:30.70), Kiski Area’s Addison Stankay in eighth (21:56.50) and Plum’s Maura Smith in 10th (22:10.50).

On the boys side, Fox Chapel’s Rowan Gwin finished first in a time of 16:34.10 and led the Foxes boys squad to its fifth straight section title.

He trimmed nine seconds off of his third-place time from the Kiski Invitational.

Ethan Vaughan won the boys race at the Kiski Invitational, but he was held out of Wednesday’s section meet as he rests and recovers from leg stress issues.

“It was a little hot today,” Gwin said. “The last race here was way better conditions. I went out there and wanted to control the race. The hill got to me a little bit, but I pushed through it and made a move.

“It was a loss not having Ethan here, but he’s working on getting back from a minor thing. He wants to be ready for WPIALs in a couple of weeks. The team overall finished all right. Some of the guys didn’t have their best race, but that’s how it goes every week. But we did well enough to get the places we needed. It feels great to keep the section title.”

Fox Chapel’s top five scoring runners finished 13th or better. David Black took sixth (17:02.00), and Michael Costello (17:42.60) was ninth.

“It comes down to consistency, and that’s what we want at Fox Chapel,” Gwin said.

It was a close contest for second in the boys individual standings as Franklin Regional’s Nathan Kociela (16:43.90) edged Gateway’s Kefimba Cisse by two seconds.

Kociela dropped 23 seconds from his time at the Kiski Invitational.

“I drank a lot of water before the race,” he said. “There were the five of us right there competing. We were all sort of feeding off of each other. We pushed each other to run well. I love races like that, with a small pack like that. You just sort of feel it out and see what you can do.”

Individual fourth place was close as well as Kiski Area’s Sam Plazio (16:52.70) got the better of Plum’s Gabriel Powell by one second.

Kiski Area’s Paul Roberts (17:35.00) and Justin Tucker (17:35.60) took seventh and eighth, respectively, and Plum’s Aiden Steinagle rounded out the top 10 with a time of 17:51.60.

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.