NEWVILLE — It was a clean sweep of gold medals for Greencastle-Antrim at the Mid Penn Conference cross country championships on Saturday.

The Blue Devils’ Claire Paci captured the girls title with a time of 18:36, winning by two seconds over Vanessa Adler of Carlisle, and in the boys race, G-A teammate Weber Long blitzed the field in a time of 15:48, winning by 21 seconds over the runner-up, Ray Bondy of Carlisle.

Claire Paci

Greencastle coach Rich Secrest said, “The girls had a pretty close race. A lot of the other girls, like (Chambersburg’s Camy) Kiser, have gotten better over the last few weeks, and we gave Claire a big workout this week that might have been a factor. I think Claire can break 18:00 on that course on a better day. Today, we wanted her to just race and get a feel for the pace and not worry about the clock.”

The Blue Devils easily won the Class 2A boys team title with 28 points, with Boiling Springs in second with 71.

“I thought Weber would be challenged a little more,” Secrest said. “We didn’t want him to go all out because we had a really big workout Tuesday. You have to train to be able to peak at the right time and we’re taking a gamble that we’ll make states (as a team). As a result, I thought they were a little tired today. But you have to be able to push through that if you want to succeed.”

Also for G-A, Kyle Baker was 15th in 16:51, Dalton Noblit was 24th in 17:07, Caden Hudson took 27th in 17:10 and Joel Amstutz was 75th in 18:52.

Chambersburg placed fourth in the 3A girls team standings with 94 points, behind State College (55), Mechanicsburg (68) and Hershey (71), and Kiser crossed the line in third place with a time of 18:51.

Trojan coach Chris Monheim said, “We had to scratch Olivia Rieck at the last minute, but we still had our best day of the season. The girls really stepped up and multiple girls had their best races of the year. If we get Rieck back in two weeks (for the District 3 championships) and we run like this, we’ll have a shot at getting to states.”

Weber Long

In addition to Kiser, Chambersburg’s runners included Lexi Boyd (22nd in 20:37), Emma Armstrong (27th in 20:56), Abigail Bricker (34th in 21:10), Allie List (35th in 21:12) and Emilea Alleman (42nd in 21:39).

“Kiser had her best time on that course and was right in the race the whole way,” Monheim said. “We had five girls receive all-conference medals (top 35) and our record is six. With Reick in there, we might have equaled that number.”

The Trojan boys earned fifth place in the crowded 3A team standings with 111 points, in front of Mechanicsburg (113) and just behind Hershey (110). The top three teams were State College (55), Carlisle (85) and Cumberland Valley (92).

Chambersburg coach John Ambrosio said, “Our No. 3 runner, Ari Snyder, had a stitch in his side today and didn’t count; with him running his normal race, we could have maybe been as high as second — but that’s how it goes.”

Ben Colli took 14th for the Trojans in 16:51, followed by Nick Monheim (16th, 16:53), Karter Reath (26th, 17:08), Zack Yourkavitch (43rd, 17:42), Billy Prentice (52nd, 17:50) and Kaden Rife (61st, 18:07).

“It was a fairly solid day for us, but if we want to get to states (top 4 at districts), most of the guys will have to run a little bit better.”

Other area boys with high finishes included Isaac Moats of Waynesboro (37th in 17:35), the Indians’ Joseph Jacobs (58th in 18:01) and Shippensburg’s Isiah Shively (92nd in 19:00).

For the girls, Waynesboro’s Isabella Ruefle was 24th in 20:39, Katharine Board of Greencastle took 26th in 20:56, James Buchanan’s Sydney Fleming took 36th in 21:16 and Nora Braun of Shippensburg was 64th in 22:27.