Mount St. Mary's Invitational

Notre Dame girls, Westminster boys, Josianne Lauber, Chris Wright

9/11/99 at Mount St. Mary's College, Emmitsburg MD
5000 meters, flat, partly cloudy, 75 degrees, mild breezes

Detailed results:  BOYS - GIRLS

Two schools rich in cross country tradition -- Notre Dame of Baltimore (girls) and MD Westminster (boys) -- dominated the team competition, while Josianne Lauber of PA Oxford and Chris Wright of MD Mount St. Joseph's took the individual titles.   Only 12 schools competed -- less than half of the last 2 years -- because several Maryland counties restricted sports competition during the Jewish holidays. 

Girls - Notre Dame, which has 50 girls on its cross country squad, ran 13 on the varsity and scored 3-6-7-8-9 and 11 of the top 24.    This was good for a decisive 33-61 victory over MD Westminster, which opened its season ranked higher than Notre Dame in the Baltimore Sun rankings.  

Girls individual champion was Pennsylvania star Josianne Lauber, who led all the way and finished in 19:31.7, 31 seconds ahead of last year's winner, Faith Homan of PA Milton Hershey School.  

Boys - MD Westminster shook off the loss to graduation of 2-time state champion Jason Santucci and showed more depth than ever.   The Maryland 4A (largest schools) champion the last 5 years spotted Mount St. Joseph's first place and then poured in the next four finishers, 5 of the top 9, and 8 of 19.   This turned an expected duel with Mount St. Joseph's into a 23-57 rout.   Westminster's five scorers, led by Jesse O'Connell's 16:48, finished in a 51-second interval.  

Consolation for Mount St. Joseph's was the sterling performance of boys winner Chris Wright, who transferred to the private school last year from MD Owings Mill.  Wright, a double gold winner at Cleveland in this year's AAU Junior Olympics (3000 meters and steeplechase), toured the 5000 meters in 16:32 for a wire-to-wire 16-second margin over O'Connell.  

The course was re-routed this year to remove some tight turns, which evidently contributed to faster times.  The girls winner was 89 seconds faster than last year and the boys 39 seconds.