Plum runners start season strong at Red, White and Blue Invitational

By: Michael Love
Saturday, September 13, 2025 | 11:01 AM

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Mayah Torres ran to a 39th-place finish at the Red, White & Blue Invitational on Sept. 6 at White Oak Park.

The Plum senior and the Mustangs girls cross country team’s top runner was close to going below 20 minutes in the Class 3A race filled with some of the top competitors in Western Pennsylvania. She clocked a time of 20 minutes, 0.50 seconds.

“I felt really good,” Torres said. “I really wanted to break 20, but it was exciting to see I could get that close, and I know I will get that this season. I am excited to see what I am able to do in the upcoming meets.”

Torres leads a Plum girls team which also returns junior Maura Smith, seniors Natalie Wagner and Brooke Price, and sophomore Olivia Miller.

All five ran at WPIALs last year. Torres led the way in the WPIAL Class 3A race with a 68th-place finish (20.44.8) as the team took 22nd.

Torres said there is excitement among a girls team which features a group of freshmen led by Addison Diano and includes Josephine Falcone and Annabel Everett.

Smith placed 53rd at Red, White & Blue in a time of 20:27.70, while Diano clocked a time of 20:56.70 for 73rd on the same course that will host the WPIAL championships in late October.

“We’ve had a really strong start, and it’s cool to see what we’re all going to do,” Torres said.

“There’s such good chemistry between the returning runners and the freshmen. We’re all pushing each other to go faster.”

Plum coach Brent Kennedy said he was looking forward to seeing how the girls team, as well as the boys runners fronted by junior Brady Sciullo and fellow WPIAL returnees in sophomore Aiden Torres and junior Tyler McClintock, would fare at last Friday’s Kiski Invitational at Northmoreland Park.

Sciullo led the Plum boys at WPIALs last year at White Oak Park with a 112th-place finish in 17:57.5. He returned to White Oak for Red, White & Blue and lowered that time to 17:32.30, taking 73rd overall in Class 3A race.

“I felt it was a good starting point for my season,” he said.

“I can definitely build off of that where I can get a top-25 finish at WPIALs and get to states. We all were able to use it to see where we are and what we need to work on for the rest of the season. We are a younger team, but we have a lot of potential. I think we can do something later in the season when we get stronger.”

Aiden Torres and McClintock didn’t run at Red, White & Blue, but Kennedy was able to see several underclassmen — juniors Patrick Morrow and Joshua Ingram, sophomore Tyson Consuegra and freshman Gavin Darnell — take to the course and be able to form a benchmark as they move forward.

“We’re happy with the start that we saw at Red, White & Blue,” Kennedy said. “We’re not where we want to be yet, but it is still the middle of September. We have a lot of season ahead of us with a lot of room to grow.

“We were 18th on the girls side at Red, White & Blue which was higher than we’ve been in a few years. We have a pretty young group of boys and girls runners with some solid leadership, especially from the seniors. It was a good starting point for us to get out there and shake off the rust. Now we can build from there.”

Plum will travel east to Hershey on Saturday to run at the PIAA Foundation Invitational on the same course that will host the state championships in early November.

The Mustangs then will join Armstrong, Fox Chapel, Franklin Regional, Gateway, Kiski Area, Penn Hills and Woodland Hills at the one-day Division I, Section 4 championship meet Oct. 1 at Northmoreland Park.

“I think it is a good format to decide the section champions,” said Kennedy who said the Kiski Invite on the same Northmoreland Course would be a beneficial prelude to the section championships with the runners getting a solid feel for the course and its many challenges.

“Having it all in one day allows us to go to some bigger invitationals instead of having dual meets every week. It also allows us to have longer blocks of training.”

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.

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