C.B. West too fast for North Penn

Central Bucks West runner challenging North Penn pack.

Daelin Brown

Central Bucks West runner challenging North Penn pack.

TOWAMENCIN- On a hot afternoon, the North Penn Boys’ Cross Country team (2-2) sweated through their last home meet of the season. Running in a tough race against Central Bucks West (5-0) and Central Bucks South (0-3), North Penn had a mix of good and bad races as a team.  Although the results varied the race appeared to be a good learning experience for many of the runners.

“It was tough conditions with the heat, but C.B. West and C.B. South had to run in the heat, too. We definitely had some good races, but I don’t think we had our best team race,” said Head Coach Michael Werner.

At mile one, senior Brendan O’Toole and sophomore Noah Demis were running side by side in first place. With a C.B West runner right behind them, Demis tried to stay with O’Toole.  Junior, Brian Johnson trailed behind them in a pack of C.B. West and C.B. South runners.

“This race was definitely not what we were looking for. We have a really young and inexperienced team, so the heat and conditions definitely hit home,” said O’Toole.

By the second mile O’Toole broke away from Demis, creating a gap between himself and the other runners. Demis was still able to hold off the other runners. Three C.B West runners passed Johnson and he moved into 6th place. With the heat getting to the runners, everyone competing definitely had slowed down by mile two.

“We can take two things away from the meet: we could have taken a win or we could have taken the experience. We took the experience and it turned out into good training. We took a lot of experience from today, so I definitely think we can turn it into something else. We are just starting out our harder workouts so we could definitely improve from here,”said O’Toole.

O’toole took another conference victory at the finish line, but Demis was  not able to stay with him. Getting passed by a C.B. West runner in the last half of mile, Demis finished the race in third place. Johnson was able to maintain his spot behind the two C.B. West runners and finished the race in sixth place. Seniors, Josiah McCall and Tristan Misko finished in ninth and fifteenth for North Penn, but with the number of C.B. West and C.B. South runners between them, North Penn was unable to come out with a win.

“We have a lot of areas in which we can improve. This is a team that has had experience and a ton of adversity during the month of September, and we are going to be happy to see September go away and move into October. There’s a lot of potential on this team, and if we work hard and come together the right way, it could be a really great end of the season,” said Coach Werner.