Abington Heights girls lead district entries at Paul Short Invitational

Lehigh University hosted 228 full high school cross country teams plus representatives from 29 more for a total of 2,278 runners Oct. 4 for the annual Paul Short Invitational.

The Abington Heights girls turned in the strongest performance among the 18 District 2 teams that made the trip to Bethlehem for one of the state’s premier races.

Anna Pucilowski led the way for the Comets, placing 15th out of 345 in the Girls Gold race. The Gold races featured the strongest fields of the three races conducted for each gender.

Pucilowski’s time of 18:29.2 was the 17th best posted out of 1,034 girls that competed on the day.

Abington Heights finished sixth in the Gold field of 35 teams and runners from four other schools.

Haverford won with 138 points. The Comets had a score of 254.

Reese Morgan was 47th, Kiera Crowell 55th, Calli Gilboy 71st and Marley Gilboy 75th, all placing in the top 22 percent of the field to form the five-runner team score.

The Abington Heights girls are unbeaten in Lackawanna League dual meet competition this season.

Abington Heights was 12th out of 39 teams and third among the seven District 2 entries in the Boys Brown race.

Jack Shoemaker led the Comets, placing 68th out of 410.

Both Scranton Prep teams ran.

The Cavaliers were 30th in the Boys Brown race, but Vince O’Malley’s 30th-place finish was the second-best by a runner from District 2.

The Classics were 19th of 35 teams in Girls White.

Sophia Boland led the way by placing 63rd of 307.