By BUDDY HURLOCK
Staff reporter
10/06/2002

CENTREVILLE -- Chad Darlington led the St. Mark's High cross country team to a first-place finish at the Salesianum Invitational on Saturday.

The Spartans defeated the other 17 teams in the boys B race by putting five runners in the top 14 finishers. Darlington, a senior, led St. Mark's by covering the 3.1-mile course in 17 minutes, 45 seconds for third place.

St. Mark's finished 3-7-8-12-14 for 44 points, beating Upper Moreland (Pa.), which scored 57.

"We came in here pretty determined," Darlington said. "We didn't think of any one other team. We just focused on ourselves, and tried to do the times we can do."

The Spartans' other scoring runners were junior Matt O'Brian (18:12), senior Zak Golladay (18:18), junior Jake Martin (18:25) and sophomore Kyle Hoffman (18:31).

Nine other Delaware teams were in the race, including Charter, which scored 151 to place fourth. Cape Henlopen (269) finished ninth and Brandywine (288) placed 10th.

Holy Ghost Prep (Pa.) won the boys C race with 48 points. Archmere (104) was second and Tatnall (131) third. That was the same 1-2 team finish as last year, but Tatnall improved on a 17th-place finish from a year ago.

The Auks had finishing positions of 3-7-22-29-43, with the Hornets close at nearly each spot, 4-8-25-32-62.

Archmere junior Peter McBride (17:39) took third and Tatnall junior Kyle Kershner (17:51) finished fourth.

"It's always good to come out on top as far as the in-state teams, but we really wanted to win it," McBride said.

Four other Delaware runners finished in the top 10. Milford's Chad Carpenter (18:01) was fifth, Archmere's Jason Nista (18:07) was seventh, Tatnall's Stephen Brown (18:19) was eighth and Mount Pleasant's Tyler Mayforth (18:2) was ninth.

Toms River North (N.J.) won the Boys A race, defeating La Salle (Pa.) 60-64. Salesianum placed fourth. Pete Hess (16:42) of Toms River North had the day's only sub-17 minute time.

Sallies' P.J. Meany came in fourth in 17:15, clocking the best time Saturday by any Delaware runner. Teammate Ryan Hamill was 13th in 17:51.

Middletown was entered in the boys A race for the first time and placed 14th. Its top finisher was Steve Blanco, who was 42nd in 18:40. Student body size determined in which race the schools were placed.