Upstate teams dominate at Lake; CR, Cape best of local teams at invitational
By Jonathan Starkey, Milford Chronicle

Caesar Rodney's Jesse Brooks led Downstate runners at the Lake Forest Invitational with a sixth-place finish. Delaware State News/James Pernol

MILFORD - The individual results of the Lake Forest Invitational Saturday were like looking at a list of New Castle County schools.

Brandywine, Mt. Pleasant, and Archmere runners littered the top 10, leaving Downstate runners fighting to claim a spot in the top 20.

Teams ran in two divisions Saturday. Fourteen bigger schools ran in the A division and 23 smaller schools ran in the B division.

Brandywine's Anna Brousell dominated the girls' A race, finishing first with a time of 18 minutes, 56 seconds.

Archmere's Erica Jackey then won the B race, running a time of 20 minutes, 54 seconds.

The boys' races were much the same.

Mount Pleasant's Phil Weigel won the B race with a time of 16 minutes, 18 seconds and Dominic Della Pelle of Salesianum won the A race in 16 minutes, 37 seconds.

Jefferson, an out-of-state team, won both A division team titles while Archmere won the girls' B title. Concord won the boys' B division.

Some Downstate runners found success Saturday afternoon at Killens Pond.

Caesar Rodney's Jesse Brooks ran a time of 17 minutes, 7 seconds to claim the sixth place spot in the A race.

Brooks said he felt other runners approaching him in the last couple miles of the race.

"My dad started yelling 'Jesse you better go," Brooks said.

"I don't think I've ever had to kick that hard."

Brooks led the Caesar Rodney's boys' squad to a fifth-place finish in the A division, the best among Downstate teams with 164 points.

Sussex Tech finished sixth in the same division.

Sven Haag led Cape Henlopen, which came in with a third-place finish among B schools.

Haag ran a time of 17 minutes, 38 seconds to place eighth in the race.

After finishing 12th in boys' B race Teddy Bobola said the upstate dominance has something to do with the different landscape upstate.

"There are more hills upstate, a lot more challenging courses," Bobola said. "Plus they have a lot more kids."

On the girls side, Milford led the Downstate teams with a fifth-place finish in the B division while CR finished eighth among A division schools.

But it was Sussex Tech's Nicole Mahoney that ran the best among Downstate's girls, finishing in a time of 20 minutes 53 seconds, good enough to take eighth in the A race.

Mahoney said she usually runs in the 23s at Killens.

"It was better than I expected," she said of her time. "I've never ran this fast on this course.

Lake's Danielle Riley posted a good time as well, completing the B race in 21 minutes, 9 seconds.

She finished third in the B pool as Milford's Elizabeth Butterly's 21-minute, 44-second run was enough to finish eighth.

Caesar Rodney head coach Charlie Bell recognized something different between the upstate and Downstate schools. Bell said many of his athletes run to stay in shape and aren't dedicated to cross country.

"The number of kids is probably about the same," he said. "I think it boils down to the attitude.

"We just don't have that commitment to the sport."