Three years ago at the 2022 Colonial League Cross-Country Championships, Virginia Kraus witnessed Palisades senior Thomas Smigo win his fourth consecutive championship, paving the way for the young freshman to start on a similar track herself.
Kraus dominated the competition that day, and the only thing that’s changed since is the jersey that she wears while running away from the rest of the league.
After two straight titles representing Moravian Academy, Kraus transferred to Saucon Valley for her final two seasons, and finished with a fourth consecutive league championship on Wednesday afternoon at DeSales University.
“I think seeing Thomas [Smigo] do it really made it into something that seemed doable, because coming into my freshman year, I had no idea what to expect and so much has changed since then,” Kraus said. “I’ve learned a lot about the sport, and my freshman year I was so nervous. I didn’t enjoy it at all. Now when I get on the race course, I’m here to enjoy it. I’m here to learn from it. I’m here to have a good time.
“Seeing Thomas do it, seeing that attitude he had toward it after four years, kind of set a good example for me about what it was going to become for me if I could keep doing it every single year.”
Southern Lehigh’s Miles Etters. (Derek Bast/Special to The Morning Call)
Southern Lehigh’s Miles Etters, with his high school located less than a mile away, tends to take advantage of it by running at the championship course whenever he wants.
That familiarity paid off as he ended Palmerton’s Connor Hibell chance at a three-peat with a championship-winning run of 16:50.81.
“I know this course probably better than everyone,” Etters said. “Sometimes, I would just spend a day running the course and visualizing it, so yeah, I felt good.”
Neither champion received enough help to spark a team title as Notre Dame-Green Pond captured its fourth-straight girls championship while Wilson won its second title in three years on the boys side.
The Crusaders, paced by Samantha Karwacki (third), Brenna Hammerstone (seventh), Ella Schweitzer (ninth), Alivia Rieland (19th) and Giana Garis (21st) scored 59 points to complete a four-year sweep for a stellar senior class.
“It means a lot to us, because every year we come back, we know we want to be better than we were the year before,” Schweitzer, a senior, said. “Holding that standard is really important.”
It was another senior, Sam Karwacki, who passed Southern Lehigh’s Caelee Lenhart in the final stretch to take third-place and break what would’ve been a tie in the team standings that would’ve gone to the Spartans for having the highest finisher.
“When I saw the league standings come out, it had me as third, and when it started getting closer, I needed to get third and prove to everybody that I can do this,” Karwacki said. “I think I just had to do that because I wasn’t passing the first two.”
Wilson received contributions from Jeffrey Sunderlin (fourth), Anderson Silfies (ninth), Justin Hetrick (11th), Dillard Jones (17th), Liam Gable (18th) to stun both Notre Dame-GP and Southern Lehigh, both of whom finished ahead of the Warriors in the regular-season standings.
“There was one point in the season where we were all tied for first,” Sunderlin said. “So, I thought about it, but I never really thought it was actually possible.”
The Spartans (57 points) and Crusaders (58 points) came in just behind the league champions whose top-five finishers combined for just 55 points. Silfies defeated Southern Lehigh’s Jules Thornton by just over two seconds for ninth place, which proved to be the difference between a championship and a runner-up finish.
“Honestly, I just came out in a different strategy than I usually do, and this was my best race here by far,” Silfies said. “I just had something to push for that was a little special to me.”
The junior was donning a green wristband with the rest of his team to honor his mother, Jamie, who is battling stage four cancer.
“We ran with our hearts and not with our legs,” Silfies said. “We did it all for my mom today.”
Etters allowed Hibell to set the pace for most of the race, but found his opportunity within the final mile to take the lead and never look back.
“I made sure it wasn’t a slower pace … because I just held that pace all the way through the second mile, even though it was hillier,” Etters said. “And then when I took it, I took it, and just went with it.”
A final sprint with the finish line in sight as he emerged around the final corner ensured that nobody was going to catch up and take what had become an elusive gold medal for the veteran Spartan.
“I think it’s mostly that I just worked my butt off over the summer, over the fall, and I worked really hard,” Etters said. “I came here to get the gold, and I really wanted it, so I just pushed through the pain.”
Kraus was as close to a lock as you can be in any sport to win the championship, so she set her sights beyond just a gold medal.
“My goal was just to run a PR for the course because that’s really all that you could set as a goal in cross-country,” Kraus said. “And I did by three seconds, so I’ll take it. But, hopefully, I can just keep improving and get a few more seconds off next week.”
Next week’s District 11 Cross-Country Championships will take place at DeSales University on Wednesday, Oct. 22. The last meet of the season, the PIAA Championships, will be held at the Parkview Cross Country Course in Hersheyon Saturday, Nov. 1.
COLONIAL LEAGUE CROSS-COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS
At DeSales University
BOYS
Team scores: 1. Wilson Area 59, 2. Southern Lehigh 61, 3. Notre Dame-Green Pond 61, 4. Saucon Valley 131, 5. Lehighton 137.
Top 12 medalists: 1. Miles Etters (SL) 16:50.8, 2. Connor Hibell (Palm) 17:06.2, 3. Emmett Rieland (NDGP) 17:15.4; 4. Jeffrey Sunderlin (Wil) 17:32.1, 5. Theodore Wechtler (SV) 17:37.1, 6. Dante Azzolina (NDGP) 17:44.5.5, 7. Elijah Pagotto (Leh) 17:44.5, 8. Quinn Heimbach (Leh) 17:46.7, 9. Anderson Silfies (Wil) 17:50.1, 10. Jules Thornton (SL) 17:53.9, 11. Justin Hetrick (Wil) 17:58.3, 12. Aiden Van Wert (NDGP) 18:02.5.
GIRLS
Team scores: 1. Notre Dame-Green Pond 59, 2. Southern Lehigh 61, 3. Wilson Area 101, 4. Saucon Valley 119, 5. Jim Thorpe 156.
Top 12 medalists: 1. Virginia Kraus (SV) 17:51.1, 2. Juliana Bonham (Wil) 19:48.6, 3. Sam Karwacki (NDGP) 20:09.1, 4. Caelee Lenhart (SL) 20:16.5, 5. Logan Gillespie (JT) 20:27.4, 6. Rosalia Nestor (NW) 20:27.8, 7. Brenna Hammerstone (NDGP) 20:39.7, 8. Katherine Colon (Wil) 20:51.2, 9. Ella Schweitzer (NDGP) 21:02.5, 10. Claudia Pagotto (Leh) 21:04.8, 11. Bridget Steidle (SV) 21:04.8, 12. Elizabeth Kane (SL) 21.23.
Derek Bast is a freelance writer who can be found on Twitter/X at @derek_bast or reached by email at derekbast11@gmail.com.
