By BUDDY HURLOCK
Staff reporter
11/03/2002

CENTREVILLE -- It was something old and something new for the 20th annual New Castle County Cross Country Championships held Saturday at Brandywine Creek State Park.

Salesianum School won the boys race for the 17th time, putting four runners in the top nine finishers.

Meanwhile, the Tower Hill girls continued a dream season by winning their first county title. The Hillers scored 49 points, the lowest winning total in the girls meet in five years.

Chad Darlington of St. Mark's and Jessica Leitsch of Brandywine were the respective individual race winners. Darlington ran the 3.1-mile course in 17 minutes, 17 seconds. Leitsch won in 19:58.

Brandywine's girls had won the past four county titles.

But Tower Hill has been hard to beat of late. The young squad had five runners in the top 16.

Leading the Hillers' pack were two sophomores - Lisa Klein, second in 20:15, and eighth-place finisher Sara Casscells (21:31). They were followed by juniors Julie Pike (21:36, 10th) and Mimi Kelly (21:53, 13th) and freshman Anna Pike (22:07, 16th), Julie's sister.

Klein was last year's state champion in Division II. She said she's having more fun this year.

"It's a lot nicer to have the team there; it does take the pressure off, " Klein said.

Julie Pike said the Hillers had a simple plan to approach a three-way battle with Brandywine and Padua, which were second and third, respectively.

"We all had a job to do -- any blue and yellow shirts ... go get them," she said.

Rounding out the girls top five were A.I. du Pont's Jackie Reifschneider (20:53), Brandywine's Anna Brousell (20:57) and Padua's Samantha Lichtner (21:00).

Salesianum finished 2-5-8-9-14 to score 38 in the boys race, with Archmere second and St. Mark's third.

Sallies' top five were Ryan Hamill (17:31), P.J. Meany (17:42), Tom Lord (17:47), Mike Zeberkiewicz (17:48) and Sean Dececchis (18:04). All but Dececchis are seniors.

"We never have a strategy. We just run and don't plan anything," Hamill said.

Said Sallies coach Ralph Heiss: "[Hamill] has sustained a high level of running the whole year. He's just a very hard-working kid, and they all key off each other. That's why this stuff happens; it's a hard-earned team performance."

Tatnall's Kyle Kershner (17:33) was third and Middletown's Steve Blanco (17:35) took fourth.