North Allegheny likes to use the Red, White and Blue Classic as an early-season gauge on what improvements need to be made before the meets.
“The kids are really sharp right now,” North Allegheny coach John Neff said. “This is a good barometer to see where you are at this time of the season.”
If the results are any indication, the Tigers may be looking at a sixth consecutive PIAA Class 3A girls title and a third straight for the boys.
North Allegheny opened the Class 3A portion of the 21st annual Red, White and Blue Classic with a 1-2-3 finish in the girls division en route to a 35-point showing and a 36-point decision over second-place Morgantown.
A perfect score in cross country is 15 points, as the placements of a school’s top five finishers are added up so the lowest score wins.
Junior twins Wren and Robin Kucler took the top two spots, as Wren won with a time of 17 minutes, 45 seconds and Robin finished 18 seconds later in 18:03. Senior Eva Kynaston was in third with a time of 18:23.
Wren was fourth in the WPIAL finals a year ago behind a pair of returning runners, champion Logan St. John Kletter and third-place finisher Caroline Adams, both of Mt. Lebanon. Adams finished fourth in the Red, White and Blue in 18:27, while St. John Kletter did not compete.
North Allegheny’s boys weren’t quite as dominant but still pulled out a 93-109 win over Hampton, the two-time reigning WPIAL Class 2A champion that opted to run up for the meet. Tigers junior Jack Bertram was the top WPIAL finisher as he finished second to MJ Pottinger of Grove City.
This year, though, the meet has more import than in most previous years, as White Oak Park is the venue for the WPIAL finals on Oct. 26.
“I really like this course a lot because it’s flat and it’s fast, but more than that, the kids like it,” Neff said. “It only matters if they like it.”
For the last three years, the Class 2A division has been dominated by two runners, as Brownsville’s Jolena Quarzo and Ringgold’s Ryan Pajak were both three-time champions. But this year, things were a lot different as Quarzo is now a freshman at N.C. State, while Pajak opted against competing to become a four-time champion and instead went on a college visit.
With the door left wide open on both sides of the meet, a pair of Montour seniors went through and claimed the top spot.
Julian Kletz, who finished 19th in the 2022 PIAA Class 2A final, just edged out Quaker Valley junior Clark LaLomia at the finish line to claim his first title at the event.
Kletz hit the tape in 15:34 with LaLomia right on his heels a second behind.
“At the end, I didn’t expect Clark. He crushed it down the final stretch,” Kletz said. “At the end, he pushed me harder than anything I ever had. It was good and I got the win.”
Kletz was also cognizant of who wasn’t in the race. Not that it detracted from his victory in the slightest.
“Coming into this race, you get a good feel for the WPIAL, except for Ryan,” Kletz said. “Everyone wants to test themselves against him. I raced him last week and he beat me pretty good. It maybe would have been a little bit smaller of a gap (than last week), but it’s always fun having him here.”
Because Pajak is so quick on this course — he ran a course-record 15:15 in last year’s Red, White and Blue — Kletz changed his strategy a bit heading in.
“I went out fast in the first mile and went 4:45, which shocked me because I never go out that fast,” Kletz said. “But I felt good and ended up taking the lead at about 1.75 miles and started to kick it in, but Clark came out of nowhere in that final stretch. That was a fight.”
While Kletz took the boys title, his Spartans teammate, Lakyn Schaltenbrand took the girls.
Schaltenbrand, who was 17th in the state a year ago, won with a time of 19:06, 12 seconds faster than Hampton junior Kevyn Fish. It was also nice to win on a course she hadn’t seen since the 2020 WPIAL finals when she finished second to Quarzo.
“I felt like I was in a slump and I couldn’t get out, so this feels good,” Schaltenbrand said. “It’s been since freshman year since I did this course, so it was nice to be able to see it.”
Keith Barnes: kbarnes.pg@gmail.com and Twitter @kbarnes_pghsprt
First Published: September 9, 2023, 7:36 p.m.
