State College Boys Win AAA Title With Broad Effort; Destini Smith Scores Enough For Souderton By Herself

By Oliver Hinson for DyeStat

The State College boys have had a banner year. In the fall, they won their first cross country state title since 1986. On Saturday, they took home another PIAA trophy, winning the AAA boys track and field championship with 53 points.

The win this weekend came with a little help from the distance squad. Brothers Isaac and Theo Oppermann, who led the way on the cross country course, were somewhat quiet; Isaac finished third in the 3,200 meters, scoring six points, while Theo didn’t score. The rest of the distance unit added four points with a fifth-place finish in the 4x800 relay.

Jesse Myers won the 200 meters and took fourth in the 100 meters, rounding out the Lions’ scoring on the track. They got a lot of help from the field, too. Nathan Haas added 15 points with a win in the javelin and a fourth place in the discus, while Adam Bell won the pole vault.

On the individual side, Carter Smith (Mifflin County) had arguably the best performance of anyone in the meet. He threw down a US#3 4:01.54 in the 1,600 meters on Friday, winning by four seconds against Penn commit Vinay Raman (Hershey) and Notre Dame commit Jack Bertram (North Allegheny). The next day, he won the 800 meters in 1:50.56.

Penn State commit Adam Kingston (Manheim Township) won the boys 3,200 meters in 8:51.25, the eighth-fastest time in Pennsylvania high school history. He ran a 57-second last lap to outkick Bertram, who ran 8:47.76 at the Arcadia Invitational this April.

Destini Smith Leads Souderton To Girls' Title

Technically, Souderton Area’s Destini Smith didn’t do all the scoring for her team — Janae Pettaway scored three points in the 100 meters — but even without Pettaway’s contribution, Smith still would have won her team the state title with 30 points. Here’s a breakdown of her weekend:

On Friday afternoon, she won the triple jump, leaping 42-7 on her first jump and never giving up the lead: 10 points. On Saturday morning, she won the high jump, clearing 5-7 and never missing a bar along the way: 20 points. That afternoon, she came back in the long jump. On her fifth attempt, she jumped 19-11.50, earning her the win by nearly a foot: 30 points.

Runner-up JP McCaskey High scored 29.

McCaskey and the rest of the top five followed a similar scoring pattern to Souderton. Each school seemed to have its own domain — not quite to the same degree as Souderton — and McCaskey’s was sprints. Ella Petrosky scored 16 points with second-place finishes in the 100 meters and 200 meters.

Owen J. Roberts, meanwhile, scored all 22 of its points in the distance events. The team took second in the 4x800 relay, while Jane Kratz finished second in the 800 meters and third in the 1,600 meters.

Kennett and Spring Grove, both of whom also scored 22, were particularly dominant in the hurdles. Spring Grove’s Ella Bahn won the 100-meter and 300-meter hurdles, while Kennett’s Aydriane Bowden finished second in both of those races and third in the 200 meters.

Stanford commit Olivia Cieslak scored 20 for Haverford Township with wins in the 800 meters and 1,600 meters, but that was the only scoring her team would do. Cieslak ran 2:03.84 for a new pesonal best and US#4 in the 800. Her winning time in the 1,600 was 4:44.22. 

Sophia Mazzoni of Derry Area won the girls javelin with 158-2.

Class AA: Quaker Valley Sweeps, Jaxon Schoedel Runs  3,200 Meet Record

The Quaker Valley boys scored 75 points in a dominating win, earning 41 from the distance events and 16 more from the hurdles.

Jonah Montagnese started off the action with a win in the 1,600 meters, putting 10 points on the board for the Quakers in the first event of the meet. He followed that up with a fourth place finish in the 3,200 meters and a sixth place finish in the 800 meters. His teammates Clark Lalomia and Jackson Pethel finished second and fourth in the latter, and all three were part of the winning 4x800 relay squad.

Davin Gartley added 16 points for the Quakers with second place finishes in the 110-meter hurdles and 300-meter hurdles.

Jaxon Schoedel broke the AA state meet record in the 3,200 meters with an 8:59.34 performance, becoming the first AA runner to break nine minutes at the state meet.

On the girls side, Villanova commit Cecilia Montagnese scored even more points than her brother, picking up 21 points across all three distance events. She took second place in the 1,600 and 3,200 and fourth in the 800. 

The Quakers also brought plenty of jumpers, and they put 28 points to put the competition out of the reach of Lewisburg Area. Oumou Thiero struck first with second place in the high jump on Friday, followed by another second place in the long jump by Vanessa Pickett. On Saturday morning, Evie Rosselli put eight on the board with a second place finish in the pole vault, and then Jay Olawaiye clinched the team title with a win in the triple jump.

TEAM CHAMPIONS 

Class AAA - State College boys, 53 points, Souderton Area girls 33 points - RESULTS

Boys AA - Quaker Valley boys 65 points, Quaker Valley girls 54 points - RESULTS