Marlee Starliper continued her incredible sophomore season, winning the Foot Locker Northeast Regional at Van Cortlandt Park in New York.
The Northern standout, who won an individual AA state title three weeks ago, added a berth in Foot Locker Nationals to her resume. Starliper took control of the race early and held off a strong field, running 17:47. She was 30th last season, but made some big improvements this fall.
Starliper is the third girls' Foot Locker Northeast champion from Pennsylvania in four years (Tessa Barrett won in 2013, Brianna Schwartz won in 2014, and Madeleine Davison won in 2015). It also continues Starliper's undefeated season, which included wins at the Carlisle Invitational (running 16:50), the District 3 Championships (17:25), and then states.
PA had two other national qualifiers in Upper Saint Clair's Savannah Shaw and Greencastle-Antrim's Taryn Parks, who placed inside the top ten. Shaw took sixth in 18:14. It was a nice improvement, too, for the senior. Shaw was 35th at FLNE last season. She took third in AAA at the state meet three weeks ago. Parks, meanwhile, will be making a return trip to San Diego. She made it last year, and qualified again this time around, taking the tenth and final nationals spot in 18:25.
Also cracking the top 25 from Pennsylvania was Eastern York's Maddie McLain (22nd in 19:12), Dallastown's Emily Schuler (24th in 19:18), and Coatesville's Brooke Hutton (25th in 19:19). Germantown Academy's Isabelle Goldstein was 28th in 19:24 and Hershey's Andrea Demko took 29th 19:28, both also earning All-Region honors.
On the boys' side, PA got itself one national qualifier in Rusty Kujdych of Neshaminy. The senior won the AAA state title in Hershey a few weeks ago and followed that up with a spot in the top ten and a berth to Foot Locker Nationals. Kujdych took eighth place in 15:51.
Bishop Shanahan's Josh Hoey was 15th in 16:10, a strong finish to is high school cross country career. Wallenpaupack's Tyler Wirth took 22nd place in 16:24. Mechanicsburg's Morgan Cupp ran 16:26 to place 25th. One of PA's top contenders, Noah Beveridge of Butler (second in AAA at states), did not finish after suffering from a back injury, per his Twitter.
Dalton Hengst, who attends McDonogh School in Maryland but lives in Pennsylvania took fourth in 15:39 to earn his second straight trip to Foot Locker Nationals.