Junior Grace Gutowski and senior Giovanna Mantuano placed 6th and 7th to lead the Paul VI girls to the team title Saturday at the 35th annual Briarwood Invitational at the historic Belmont Plateau 5,000-meter course in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.
Gutowski ran 20:09 on the challenging Belmont Plateau course, and Mantuano ran 20:21.
It was PVI’s 2nd straight Briarwood team title. They won by 25 points this year, 60-85, over Wissahickon High in Lower Gwynedd Township, Montgomery County, of by six points last year over South Western High of Penn Township, York County, Pa.
Paul VI, ranked 6th in New Jersey, placed all five scorers in the top 25. Freshman Isabella Suarez ran 21:05 and placed 12th in her first high school race, sophomore Peyton Blake was 18th in 21:58 and senior Macy Huber ran 22:22 for 24th.
Audubon had three in the top 25, with senior Riley Fayer 11th in 20:59, junior Lydia Gravante 16th in 21:53 and junior Isabella Legatie 22nd in 22:15.
Freshman Berkeley Marcelis of Wissahickon was the overall winner in 18:03.50, which pretty much has to be a freshman course record but who knows, nobody keeps track of this stuff in Pennsylvania.
In the girls freshman race over 3,000 meters, Audubon’s Emma Camm was 2nd in 12:44, Paul VI’s Riley Sheppard was 3rd in 13:26 and Audubon’s Sabrina Passon 8th in 14:19.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 