The Norwin Cross Country program is back in the hunt for a Westmoreland County and WPIAL title. The Norwin Cross Country strikes the ground running again with an 8-0 record capping off a perfect season for the second year in a row winning all Section 1 races.
NorwinXC kicked off the season with a 3000m time trial under the lights at the Norwin High School stadium on August 18. The boys raced together in one conjoined race, and the girls did the same. Enzo Jiancristoforo won the boys race with a scorching time of 9:24, where as Annie Czajkowski won the girls trial with a time of 10:34. Thomas Gaydos cut a whopping 2 minutes and 57 seconds off his three kilometer time since 2021. Both the boys and girls finished with the fastest Top 5 averages in team history for 3K.
”I feel great about dropping 3 minutes in my 3k time because it signifies my overall improvement since freshman year,” Gaydos said.
Heading into the season, NorwinXC has more depth than prior years and will utilize a pack mentality when racing.
“I always gauge how good we are as a team by how strong our junior varsity program or team is and how many kids we have competing for our top 7 varsity spots,” head coach, Coach Fleckenstein said.
The first meet of the season for the Norwin XC team took place on Sept. 2 at Cal-U for the Marty Uher Invitational. An invitational is a meet where there are multiple teams invited to race at one main place. At this meet, the Boys Varsity XC Team took sixth and the girls took fifth place. The Knights trained through and sat the top 6 runners on boys and on girls to prevent an early peak in running. Although, even though the top 6 were sat for both the boys and girls, the boys had a boy medal, Dave Shepherd, a senior on the boys varsity team.
“It felt good starting out the season like that, even though Cal-U has a big hill I was excited to see if I could improve my time, and I think I did by 2 minutes,” said senior David Shepherd. “Medaling in the same race as Drew Griffith was neat too.”
The meet after that was the Red White and Blue Invitational which was at Oak Hollow Park, where the varsity boys took 9th place, and the varsity girls 3rd place in the meet, behind two nationally ranked teams in North Allegheny and Morgantown, WV.
In this race freshman boy Owen Rankin came in with a scorching personal record of 17 minutes and 58 seconds, which is a huge accomplishment.
”Well I didn’t really know what to expect going into it but I’m happy with how I did,” Rankin said.
Next, Norwin took their talents to Derry and had raced against Derry and Penn Trafford on Sept. 19. The boys and the girls teams took 1st place in each of their races. The team finished in top placing packs, which is a strong reason for both teams’ success this season. A pack in running is when you run with other people and finish at similar times, packs can keep your time up when you run due to the incline motivation with others running with you.
Later that week on Saturday, Sept. 23, NorwinXC took on the Blue Devil Invitational Meet in Hermitage, PA. The Knights were quite successful at the meet as the boys varsity team took second place, losing to top ranked WPIAL AA Quaker Valley, while the boys junior varsity team captured first place. The Varsity Girls won first place, with the girls junior varsity girls team even sweeping the top 5 spots in the race.
The Girls Varsity team posted a 19:03 team average for the lowest all time team average time for the top 5 runners. Sophomore Annie Czajkowski won her first ever invitational with a blistering 18:10 for the full 5000m course.
“It gave me the inspiration to continue to improve for the second half of the cross country season,” Czajkowski said.
The Norwin Knights then raced Hempfield for a big Section Showdown with Hempfield and Greensburg on Tuesday Sept. 26, where Norwin clinched yet another win for the boys and girls varsity rosters. The boys swept the top 3 places sealing the victory with Enzo Jiancristoforo beating out the previous course record, and ran the race in 17:29 to set the new course record. In the girls race, the top 4 finishers for Norwin-Annie Czajkowski, Julia Walko, Jillian Ryba, and Addison Farrah-beat the previous course record at the Hempfield course.
”I was confident in myself and also my teammates going into the race that we could win,” said Jiancristoforo. “As the race progressed I started to pull away from their front guy and Thomas and Luke followed. We were successfully able to get a one to three up front. Which resulted in a win for myself and my teammates.”
— Enzo Jiancristoforo
Senior Knight, a send off to all the seniors running this season for NorwinXC, took place on Tuesday Oct. 3. This meet took place at the Knights home course located at Oak Hollow Park, which is said to be one of the hardest courses of the cross country season, due to crushing hills. The Knights at this meet crushed Latrobe and Yough, with the boys and girls varsity teams taking the win to seal up the Section titles and finish undefeated at 8-0 for both teams.
“Senior knight went just as expected, we went out there and dominated to finish out another 8-0 season,” Douglas said. “It was a great ending to my career at home.”
NorwinXC kicked off Championship October with team titles at the Bald Eagle Invitational on Saturday Oct. 6 at White Oak Park. The Knights raced the WIPIAL course again to prep them for the district championship on Oct. 26.
On Oct. 11. the Knights ran at the County Meet at Westmoreland County Community College. The Knights swept the meet taking the first place finish in each the girls and boys varsity teams winning along with the junior varsity boys and girls team. Leading the way for the Knights was was the four junior harriers: Luke Simpson in 4th (16:42), Enzo Jiancristoforo in 5th (16:45), Thomas Gaydos in 7th (17:03) and Mario Breauchy in 8th (17:04). Closing out the scoring for the Knights was Owen Rankin in 17th (17:43) and David Shepherd in 19th (17:50), and Teddy Ola in 25th (18:13). Leading the way for the Lady Knights was sophomore Annie Czajkowski with a 3rd place finish (18:49), followed by the pack led by Julia Walko in 7th (19:50), Addie Farrah in 8th (19:51) and Jillian Ryba in 9th (19:52). Audra Fedor cracked 20 minutes with a 11th place (19:58), followed by Anna Dansak in 13th (20:08) and Rosemary Gaydos in 14th (20:11).
On Oct. 17. the Knights went to Seneca Valley for the JV XC Twilight Showcace. Where the lady knights took second place from a tie with North Allegheny. Both teams scored 38 points, but a tie in cross country comes down to what place the sixth runner on each team. Which unfortunately resulted in North Allegheny-a nationally ranked team-taking home the first place finish. Whereas for the boys, the boys team scored 98 points resulting in their loss to two nationally ranked teams, North Allegheny and Morgantown, WV. All in all resulting in the Knights Junior Varsity team for both boys and girls having a combined third place finish.
“It was a great finish to my cross country career, and I’m happy to have run with the people I did,” senior Cole Kubistek said about the Junior Varsity Championship race.
Terri Wilson • Oct 14, 2023 at 6:07 pm
Wow! Very informative article on the sport of Cross Country! I am so proud of all our Norwin runners and their achievements. I personally attended just about all of the XC meets and witnessed first hand the dedication, commitment and hard work they all put into it. Great writing Noah and we enjoyed watching you and the team run!