Boys Cross Country: Patrick Lawson keeps Haverford’s Delcos streak alive
UPPER PROVIDENCE — Patrick Lawson admitted feeling a little pressure as he lined up for the start of the 58th Delaware County cross country championships Saturday at Rose Tree Park.
As the top runner for Haverford a lot was expected of the All-Delco senior. The last three individual boys winners were Fords, Ethan Fingerhut last year and Mike Donnelly in 2019 and 2018. (The meet was not held in 2020.)
“All of my teammates were saying that one of us had to win it, me or Quentin (Ryan),” Lawson said.
It wouldn’t be easy. The field was loaded with the likes of Penncrest’s Gavin Mogck, Radnor’s Luke Bodden and Aidan McHugh of Episcopal Academy.
Lawson, though, was able to best that field and claim the individual title with a time of 16:00.96 to edge Ryan by less than four seconds.
“I was pretty happy to make it a four-peat,” Lawson.
It was a tight race throughout as Lawson, Ryan, Bodden, Mogck and McHugh, who finished one through five, respectively, ran as a group and jockeyed for position for most of the way.
“I just wanted to see how the race went out,” Lawson said. “I didn’t want to lead any part of it until the last mile. I just wanted to watch everything happen and pace with everybody in the front pack.”
Lawson made his move with about 1,000 meters to go. As he approached the finish line he glanced over his left shoulder just to make sure his victory was assured.
“I was pretty tired at that point and I wanted to make sure I had enough distance where I didn’t have to kick too hard,” Lawson said. “I wanted to make sure I didn’t get caught in the last couple of meters.”
While Lawson kept Haverford’s individual streak alive, Episcopal Academy used a pack mentality to claim its first county team title.
The Churchmen placed five runners in the top 10 to out-point Penncrest, 36-57. McHugh placed fifth, followed by Dakin Ebmeyer in sixth, Dawson French seventh, Connor Hanrahan eighth and Michael Woolery 10th. Penncrest’s Brendan Hefferan finished ninth to break the EA bloc.
“It was our first (county title) in school history so we’re pretty excited about that,” McHugh said. “That was our goal coming in. We knew we had a strong team but we knew we had strong competition from the other guys, but a the end of the day the goal was to come in and get the win.”
It was a week of firsts for the Churchmen. They were ranked nationally for the first time in program history as the No. 24 team in milesplit.com’s national poll. That depth proved to be the difference for the Churchmen.
“We work together a lot in practice as a team,” Ebmeyer said. “We said going into this race that if we just race together we’ll get the job done. … Our coach emphasizes the pack running. We have five guys who can run together and that’s really special. We’re all training together, all pushing each other and our sixth and seventh guys are right there with us.”
