PERRYVILLE — A goal for Bohemia Manor's Skylar Pizzulli was to break 20 minutes on the cross country course this fall. Pizzulli has now eclipsed that mark twice in races separated by just over a week.
Pizzulli won the Susquehanna Division Cross Country Championships with a time of 19:54.99 at Perryville Community Park on Tuesday. Pizzulli put a gap of around 45 seconds between second place finisher Abigail Horsmon of Patterson Mill and North East's Leanna Rogers, who placed third. Pizzulli was one of two Bo Manor runners to win individually at the division championships. Kenai Black won the boys' race in a time of 16:59.23.
"I really liked it honestly," Pizzulli said of the course at Perryville Park. "There was some bumpier areas back at the trees that were a little annoying, but overall it was pretty flat."
Pizzulli recently broke her goal of 20 minutes at a tri-meet on Sept. 30 with a time of 19:48.5. The Bo Manor senior said she gave up dance after 15 years in order to focus more on running.
"I stopped doing it this year so I could focus more on running since colleges are starting to reach out to me," Pizzulli said. "I'm thinking that definitely helped and doing all the precautions I can to not get injured like using the balance board, ice baths, trying to make sure I take my easy days easy and not go too fast on them."
Pizzulli added she focuses on the time she wants to run when entering a race, rather than the competitors she will face.
"I just wanted to stay calm," Pizzulli said. "Just be calm, cool, collected."
Black's sub-17 time was 15 seconds ahead of the next-fastest finisher. Black did not expect a fast start to the race, but that changed after he and teammate Jason Wolfenden took the first mile out in five minutes and 14 seconds. Wolfenden finished fourth overall with a time of 17:36.45.
"I thought that it was going to be a very fast start from everybody else and I was just going to sit back and just make a move at like a mile-and-a-half," Black said. "We had started a gap from the mile-mark."
Black added his move did still come at the halfway point of the race.
"It was hard because pushing yourself in the front is not ideal," Black said.
The Bo Manor boys placed second as a team with 56 points. Fellow Class 1A school Patterson Mill won the team title with 36 points. The Huskies stacked three of their five scoring runners in the top seven with a second place effort from Chris Novak and sixth and seventh place finishes from Grayson Criswell and Noah Jahnigen. Mill's Jack Baker and Dylan Nixon rounded out its top five with 11th and 14th place results.
Bo's Gavin Rogers followed Wolfenden with a 13th place finish, while Zachary Jensen placed 20th and Oliver Leader finished 21st. North East followed in third with 74 points. Celyn Evans led the way for the Indians with a 10th place finish. North East's Connor Browne, Raheem Haynes and Joshua Owens all placed inside the top 20.
"That was the first time," Black said of racing Patterson Mill. "It gave us a good look at what we're going to be facing at states."
Top Eight Girls' Finishers: Pizzulli, BO, 19:54.99; Horsmon, PM, 20:22.14; Rogers, NE, 20:37.77; Eisner, HDG, 22:03.21; Burns, PM, 22:10.33; Wang, PM 22:25.55; Trinh, PM, 22:28.72; Corfman, HDG, 22:58.85
Top Eight Boys' Finishers: Black, BO, 16:59.23; Novak, PM, 17:14.48; Davis, HDG, 17:28.04; Wolfenden, BO, 17:36.45; Naylor, JOP, 18:00.20; Criswell, PM, 18:00.47; Jahnigan, PM, 18:02.87; Dempsey, PV, 18:22.29
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