By JACK IRELAND
Staff reporter
10/19/2002

PENNY HILL -- Chad Darlington of St. Mark's and Brandywine's Jessica Leitsch capped off a big week with impressive wins at the Bellevue Cross Country Invitational on Friday.

Darlington had a personal best of 16 minutes, 14 seconds on the 3.1-mile Bellevue State Park course, 11 seconds ahead of Archmere's Peter McBride and third-place finisher, Newark's Paul Wilcox.

Leitsch dominated with a time of 16:31 in the girls race.

Darlington and Leitsch also won at the University of Delaware Invitational on Tuesday.

Lisa Klein and Julie Pike shook off injuries, pacing Tower Hill to victory in the girls race with 51 points.

Klein ran a personal best of 18:51. Pike ran her first invitational since she fell and injured her kneecap at the Lake Forest meet in September. She was 14th in 20:20. Sara Casscells was eighth, Mimi Kelly (11th) and Anna Pike (16th) for the Hillers.

Klein, bothered by tendinitis in the arch of her right foot, ran fourth at the UD meet. While she couldn't stay with Lietsch, Klein was definitely second best.

Padua's Samantha Lichtner was third.

Padua was second with 70 points, followed by Caesar Rodney (80) and Brandywine (96). Tower Hill finished behind Brandywine and Padua Tuesday.

"I was our No. 2 runner before the injury, and the knee held up pretty well,'' said Pike. "It hurt some, but I had to keep running for the team.''

Archmere, won the boys race with 65 points with McBride (2nd), Jason Nista (7th), Chris Bourke (9th) and Eric Longo (16th).

No. 1 ranked Salesianum, running its junior varsity A team, was third with 94 points. The Sals varsity will run today in the Eastern States Meet at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, N.Y.

"I go out kind of slow in every race and went about 5:07 the first mile,'' said Darlington. "The two-mile mark is where I broke away from the group. If the Sallies [varsity] runners were there, they would have probably pushed the pace a little bit more.''

St. Mark's coach Joe O'Neill says Darlington is smart in his running style.

"Chad has a good sense of pace and knows how fast he is running,'' said O'Neill. "He has the experience and confidence to make that work.''

BOYS

Team: 1-Archmere 65, 2-St. Mark's 75, 3-Salesianum 94, 4-Newark 150, 5-Charter 175, 6-Caesar Rodney 184, 7-Tatnall 189, 8-Middletown 234, 9-Wilmington Christian 273, 10-Cape Henlopen 278, 11-Brandywine 287, 12-Milford 296, 13-A.I. duPont 381, 14-Hodgson 409, 15-Christiana 443, 16-Sussex Tech 451, 17-Delcastle 473, 18-William Penn 477, 19-St. Thomas Moore 547, 20-Glasgow 608, 21-Polytech 614, 22-Howard 674.

Individuals: 1-Chad Darlington (SM) 16:14; 2-McBride (A) 16:25, 3-Wilcox (N) 16:25; 4-Kershner (Tat) 16:26, 5-Golladay (SM) 16:37; 6-Blanco (Mid) 16:41, 7-Nista (A) 16:43, 8-Carpenter (MF) 16:44, 9-Bourke (A) 16:54, 10-Swift (CH) 16:56, 11-Bramuell (Mid) 16:57, 12-Hickey (C) 16:57, 13-Gambogi (Sal) 17:00, 14-Corey (Sal) 17:00; 15-Grafton (Hod) 17:01.

GIRLS

Team: Tower Hill 51, 2-Padua 70, 3-Caesar Rodney 80, 4-Brandywine 96, 5-Charter 164, 6-Middletown 215, 7-Cape Henlopen 216, 8-Archmere 217, 9-St. Mark's 223, 10-Newark 268; 11-A.I. duPont 308, 12-St. Thomas Moore 379, 13-Hodgson 403, 14-Milford 413, 15-Friends 419, 16-Christiana 438, 17-Sussex Tech 451, 18-William penn 533, 19-Wilmington Christian 569, 20-Delcastle 569, 21-Polytech 598, 22-Tatnall 608.

Individual: Jessica Leitsch (B) 18:30, 2-Klein (TH) 1851, 3-Lichtner (P) 18:57, 4-Reifschneider (AI) 18:40,5-Feister (Mid) 19:40, 6-Kashante Codner (CR) 19:41, 7-Paul (CR) 19:45, 8-Casscells (TH) 19:45, 9-Brouse (B) 19:51, 10-McCaffery (P) 19:58; 11-Kelly (TH) 20:06; 12-Walsh (P) 20:11, 13-Spadaro (SM) 20:18; 14-J. Pike (TH) 20:20, 15-Friend (CR) 20:23.

Reach Jack Ireland at 324-2806 or jireland@delawareonline.com.