Abington Heights made it a clean sweep of the Lackawanna League cross country season, with both the boys and girls teams completing 23-0, championship seasons.
The Comets generally dominated, with the boys emerging as the last unbeaten from their one close call midway through the season and the girls beating every opponent by double-figures margins, but never taking sole possession of first place until winning a showdown with Montrose in the final meet Oct. 18.
Abington Heights swept seven straight weekly cluster meets – beating three opponents in six of those meets and adding victories over cluster partners North Pocono and Valley View for five victories in another.
Freshman Anna Pucilowski went unbeaten against league competition, finishing first in seven straight six-team meets and setting course records in each of her last three outings. She also got the necessary support from teammates for Abington Heights to win many of its meets comfortably.
Pucilowski led a 1-2-3 finish by the Comets, clinching the victory right there, as they handed Montrose its first loss, 18-39. They had four of the top five finishers in the finale, also beating Elk Lake and Blue Ridge, 15-50, while clinching the title.
The record time of 18:29.3 on the 2.93-mile course left Pucilowski more than 50 seconds ahead of the field. Emma Horsley and Reese Morgan finished second and third.
The boys do not have the same top-level threat, but won with depth and balance.
That formula was put to the test in the midseason battle with unbeaten Scranton, which nearly pulled off the top-three sweep that clinches victory.
“We have had multiple illnesses and injuries and because of our depth, we’ve been able to respond,” Comets coach Frank Passetti said. “Our seventh, eighth and ninth runners have really stepped up and filled spots.
“ … We’ve had multiple weeks where we were missing two or three athletes.”
The perfect record was seconds from being ruined by the Knights in a meet at the Abington Heights Middle School.
Scranton has the district’s top male runner in Brian McCormack and a strong No. 2 in Luke Pikulski. Late in the race, the Knights were running 1-2-3.
“Scranton was scary,” Passetti said. “Less than 100 meters from the finish, we were getting 1-2-3’d. You can’t win a dual meet if that happens.”
Tommy Walsh, just returning to the lineup following an absence, rallied to take third in the dual with Scranton and fourth overall in the six-team race.
Nicholas Booth and Sean Rooney were sixth and seventh in the meet, which also included North Pocono, Valley View, Mid Valley and West Scranton, helping the Comets go 5-0 on the day.
Jack Sorensen and John Farrell were 10th and 11th, Hamza Mira was 13th and Kenny Lynch was 17th.
On the same day, Pucilowski was the only girl to break 20 minutes, winning by more than 40 seconds over Scranton’s Bella Noreika, one of the league’s top veteran runners.
The top five finishers form a team score and top seven can displace opponents causing the other team’s score to go up in a sport where the low score wins.
Abington Heights had seven runners in the top 14 in an effort that would have been good enough to beat an all-star team made up of the other five opponents combined.
Reese Morgan, Maia Arcangelo and Emma Horsley were fourth through sixth, Hailey Hirtz and Olivia Lam were 11th and 12th and Casey Healey placed 14th.
Abington Heights beat all five girls opponents on the day by at least 21 points. After beating three opponents by margins between 12 and 17 on Opening Day, the Comets beat the remaining 20 opponents by more than 20 points.
“Anna gets a lot of attention, but she should,” Passetti said. “She hasn’t lost and she’s won some good races.”
Scranton Prep went 18-5 while Lackawanna Trail was 9-14 in the boys league.
Scranton Prep was 14-9 and Lackawanna Trail 3-20 in girls.
