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Times-shamrock communiTy newspapers 149 Penn Avenue Scranton, PA 18503 Phone: (570) 207-3473 Fax: (570) 207-3448 E-mail: triborobanner@ timesshamrock.com
August 13, 2015
thetriborobanner.com
Cross Country Returns
ON THE INSIDE The latest happenings in our area Page 2
BANNER Local mom spearheaded the effort
by Dave Lauriha
TRIBORO BANNER WRITER
Sherri Wagner wanted an opportunity for her son Josh to be able to run cross country. The problem was that Josh attended Old Forge High School, which has not had a cross country program for more than a decade. She decided to do something about it last year, and ultimately the school board allowed the school to start as a club program, giving its students a chance to run under a structured program. After a successful year as a club sport, and buoyed by having 37 students sign up for this fall, cross country has returned to the slate of sports offered at Old Forge. “My son, who is entering his junior year, wanted to run, and because our school didn’t have a team, we tried to approach other local school districts to see if they would allow him to run independently with them,” Wagner said. “They did not allow him to, so I drafted a letter that I presented to the school board and the administrators, asking if they would consider making a club or a team if there was interest there. “Last year, they did offer to make it a club, to see how many kids would be interested.” Competing in a cluster with league powers Scranton Prep and Holy Cross, and coached by Tia Rasieleski, an English teacher at Old Forge who was an assistant cross country coach at Prep, Old Forge embarked on a journey that culminated with the school participating in the District 2 Class A Championships at Elk Lake with four varisty boys and four varsity girls participating. “Because there was an increase in interest, they did decide to make it a team,” Wagner said. “We have 37 kids participating between varsity and junior varsity.” One of the primary reasons the school felt comfortable adding cross country as a sport was that there were no seniors who ran last fall, so expectations were that most, if not all, of those athletes would return to program this year.
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Sherri Wagner
Josh Wagner
“Because there wasn’t a team at Old Forge for 10 years and they never decided to get it going again because they didn’t think there would be the interest. I was surprised by the number of signups,” Wagner said. “Once the kids found out there would be a team, even though they were participating in other fall sports like basketball or soccer, they’re still willing to do the runs.” After a whirlwind couple of weeks in the spring, former Blue Devil runner Dave Marsico Jr. was named head coach in June and started rebuilding the program. “We’re building to different things. The beginning runners are making much progress, not walking as much and running longer distances, running more,” Marsico said. “I’m seeing a big difference from the first practice to the latest one.” Just having that many athletes at his disposal qualified as a surprise to Marsico, a fouryear varsity runner at Old Forge who remembers running varsity as a freshman to enable the Blue Devils to run as a varsity team, as well as seeing a total of 12 runners in the program. “To have a girls team and a boys team, in
varsity and junior high, it’s amazing,” said Marsico, a 1997 Old Forge graduate. “I can’t express enough that I’m glad Old Forge cross country is back. It’s a good feeling, and I’m glad to be a part of it.” With 24 girls and 12 boys, that’s a much larger group than Marsico ran with during his high school days. There are just four junior high boys, which leaves them just short of the five needed to count in compiling a team score, but nonetheless Marsico will take those numbers. Other numbers and names that will be chased after for this year’s team include the performances at districts last year. The top district finisher from Old Forge was then-freshman Michael Cinamella, who placed 26th in 20:04; then-sophomore Josh Wagner, 27th in the same time; then-junior Joey Palma, 81st in 24:24, and then-sophomore Eddie Jarnicki, 85th in 24:32. The Lady Devils who finished were thenfreshmen Alexandra Nocera, 52nd place in 26:23 and Gianna Baresse, 56th in 26:35; then-sophomore Francesca Samony, 58th in 26:44; and Makayla Kresefski, 69th in 29:29.