Penns Valley’s Anna Stitzer breaks another course record en route to Mountain League XC title
Penns Valley’s Anna Stitzer not only set a personal record at the Mountain League Cross Country Championships on Wednesday, but she was also able to break her home course record.
Stitzer ran the course in 19:09 to finish in first place, breaking the previous record of 19:24. With temperatures in the lows 70s and the wind pushing against her, Stitzer waded through open fields with hills, a patch of woods and a baseball field on her path, along with a pack of other racers.
“It feels really good,” Stitzer said. “I’ve worked very hard for this all season, all winter, all summer — I’ve just worked the past year for this. It was really exciting to see the hard work pay off. ... It felt good. I felt really good today.”
Rams head cross country coach Lynda Federinko has been front and center for Stitzer’s strong season.
“She works very hard,” Federinko said. “We have a mileage set for every week and she hits it every week and she doesn’t back off and keeps going. She set goals at the beginning of the season and each race, we have a goal she goes for each time. Anna was hitting 50 miles a week [in training], but during the postseason we’re backing off.”
Breaking course records is nothing new for Stitzer.
At last week’s quad meet at Circleville Park in State College, Stitzer won with a time of 18:50 for a new course record. State College junior Marlee Kwasnica led the field through two miles, but Stitzer closed in with the two exchanging leads on the final mile. Kwasnica finished second with a 18:57. Stitzer also finished first on Sept. 28 with a new course record for Clearfield of 18:56. Stitzer set a new Hollidaysburg course record in 19:14 in a Sept. 22 meet against Hollidaysburg, Bald Eagle Area, Portage and the Grier School.
Stitzer credits her ability to break record after record this season to her rigorous training during the school year and offseason over the summer.
“I’ve done a good amount of longer tempos, some longer rep workouts on the track and that’s pretty much the main thing,” Stitzer said. “Now that we’re getting into postseason, I’m probably going to start doing some shorter, speed [workouts] — some 200s and 400s. I mainly did longer tempo runs and longer workouts.”
Boys Results
Philipsburg-Osceola’s Chad Muckey finished first with a time of 16:34. Trailing him were the Hollidaysburg duo of Chris and Ben Love, who finished with times of 16:50 and 16:54, respectively to round out the top three. Bellefonte’s Chase Ebeling, Alexander Crist and Alexander Mansfield finished fourth in 17:10, fifth in 17:22 and sixth in 18:04, respectively. Penns Valley’s McClain Reamer finished seventh (18:19) and Philipsburg-Osceola’s Scott Franz was eighth (18:29). Rounding out the top 10 were Bellefonte’s Eric Bennett (ninth in 18:35) and Daniel Mussett (10th in 18:36).
Bellefonte won as a team with 34 points, followed by Hollidaysburg (50), then Tyrone (88), Philipsburg-Osceola (103), Penns Valley in fifth (110) and Clearfield in sixth (127).
Girls Results
Penns Valley’s Anna Stitzer finished in first in 19:09, followed by teammate Alexis Durn in second with a time of 21:34. Bellefonte’s Ashleigh Aukerman took fourth in 22:31 and Manna Potter of Philipsburg-Osceola finished in ninth with a time of 23:20.
Hollidaysburg finished first of all teams with a score of 50 , followed by Philipsburg-Osceola (63) in second place, Penns Valley finishing third (70), with Clearfield (80) and Bellefonte (81) rounding out the pack.
This story was originally published October 20, 2021 at 9:38 PM.
