All-Delco Cross Country: Arizin, James repeat as county’s top runners
MARPLE >> The sport of cross country is built around the study of numbers.
Whether it is runners’ times and places or team scores, there are so many numbers that are significant to the sport.
Since the year 2000 in Delaware County, the number that has come to mind whenever Cardinal O’Hara has been mentioned is No. 1.
In that time, the Lions have won 13 Delaware County boys championships and had six-first place finishes and eight runner-up finishes in the county girls races.
In that time the Daily Times Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year has come from Cardinal O’Hara 13 times, while five Girls Runners of the Year were Lions.
In 2016, O’Hara seniors Olivia Arizin and Ryan James are repeat selections as Daily Times Cross Country Runners of the Year, the fifth time the Lions have swept both honors.
Arizin earned All-Delco honors for the fourth consecutive year while James is a three-time selection.
They are joined on the 2016 All-Delco Cross Country Team, which was selected by the Daily Times after consultation with area coaches, by Anthony Harper (Monsignor Bonner & Archbishop Prendergast), Gavin Inglis, Patrick James and Elizabeth and Eleanor Mancini (Cardinal O’Hara), James Abrahams (Haverford High), Avery Lederer (Pencrest), Jamie Green (Ridley) Emma Seifried and Kayleigh Doyle (Sacred Heart), Isabel Cardi (Strath Haven) and Syed Shah (Upper Darby).
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Arizin placed 13th in the PIAA Class 3A Championships to lead the Lions to their first state team title.
“We were really excited about what we could do when this (season) began,” Arizin said.
Tom Kennedy, who had so much success as O’Hara’s boys coach, added coaching the girls’ team to his job responsibilities, and the Lions roared.
Arizin repeated as Delco Meet champion, won the individual title at the Catholic League Meet, and broke the District 12 Meet record with a time of 18:51.30 at Belmont Plateau.
READ: The All-Delco first team capsules
At states in Hershey, she was the top finisher for the team champion Lions.
“We were confident going up there, but we knew we’d have to have a good day because there were some good teams there,” Arizin said. “It was really great. And now it seems to me that these four years have just flown by.”
She has things to accomplish in her last indoor and outdoor track seasons. Arizin is the defending PIAA Class 3A champ in the 800-meter run, which she won with a county record time of 2:06.80. Then it’s off to Georgetown University, which she selected after considering Villanova, Oregon, Notre Dame and North Carolina.
“I wanted to make all five of my visits so I would be certain about my decision,” she said. “My family is so happy for me. And Georgetown is always at the Penn Relays each year, and I’m happy about that.”
“There is no question that Olivia Arizin is the greatest female runner in Cardinal O’Hara history,” Kennedy said. “The question now is will she become Cardinal O’Hara’s greatest female athlete (by the time the indoor and outdoor track seasons are completed).”
While Arizin chases those lofty goals, James continues to chase after the honor of being the top runner in his family. His older brother, Kevin, who ran for Syracuse at the NCAA Division I championships this fall, also is a two-time Daily Times Cross Country Runner of the Year.
READ: The full All-Delco team listing
“I’m still looking at places like La Salle, Rhode Island, Pittsburgh and East Stroudsburg,” James said.
James began his season strong with a second-place finish at the Briarwood Invitational. He would finish in the top 10 in every major meet he entered.
“We put in a lot of preparation in the summer before this season began,” James said.
At the PIAA Foundation Meet on the state course in Hershey in September, he was individual champion in the Gold Division with a winning time of 15 minutes, 58 seconds.
The one thing he couldn’t have been prepared for being involved in an accident that required a hospital visit to close a serious head wound the night before the Delaware County Championships.
He was cleared to run at Delcos and claimed his second straight county title with a winning time of 15 minutes, 44 seconds, which ranks fourth all-time for the meet at Rose Tree Park, trailing only his brother Kevin (15:22), three-time runner of the year Steve Hallinan of O’Hara (15:32), and Wolfram Urbanek of Penncrest (15:41). The other runner who had a winning time of 15:44 was Monsignor Bonner’s Bill Donovan, whose son, Billy Donovan, was James’s teammate at O’Hara.
After finishing second two years in a row at the Catholic League Meet, James was individual champion in 2016.
He earned a second straight state medal with an eigth-place finish at the PIAA Class 3A championships and closed out the cross country season with an eighth-place finish and the Nike Northeast Regional championships. His time at the state meet was 16:06, six seconds slower than he ran on the course at the Foundation Meet. Had he matched his Foundation time, he would have finished sixth at states.
“We were hoping we would be a contender for the (team) championship at states,” James said. “It just didn’t work out. I didn’t get off the line and some people passed me. I was up to third by the mile before I fell back.
“Even though we didn’t get to win at states, I have a lot of great memories of all the things we did.”
He will run the mile and 3,000 meters indoors and hopes the Lions can put together relay teams that will be good enough to compete in the national championship meet.
“There’s still a lot of things to do while I’m at O’Hara,” James said.
Kennedy believes James has left his mark as a cross country runner.
“In the pantheon of great O’Hara boys cross country runners, Ryan ranks third behind Steve Hallinan and Kevin James,” the coach said.
For a number of reasons, the younger James readily will accept those words of praise from his coach.
