Mercersburg opened its girls' cross country season with a solid performance, finishing 11th out of 19 teams at the Penn Track Cross Country (PTXC) event, hosted by Kutztown (PA) University September 10.

Anne Sehon '25 was the first Blue Storm finisher (18th place overall) running a time of 21:40 that is one minute faster than the time she ran in this event a year ago. Newcomer Ella Blanco '26 was just two spots and 16 seconds behind Sehon and captain Greta Lawler '23 rounded out the top three, finishing in 40th place in a time of 22:59. Clare Ip '23 finished in 27:28 taking two minutes off her time from last year.  She was followed closely by Erika Sowah '24--who did a great job leading the opening team cheer before putting in a time of 27:53--and Gigi Devlin '24, whose 28:02 was a personal best and shaved an amazing four minutes off of last year's time. Linley Hill '23 completed the scoring for Mercersburg with a time of 29:19.  Coach Betsy Cunningham called Hill "tough as nails" as she had to stop down the homestretch due to illness, but got herself back in gear and finished the race.

Coach Cunningham went on to say that "I have so enjoyed spending time with this talented group of athletes since they arrived at preseason. We have a nice mix of new and returning athletes. This is a fair but challenging course and I am really impressed with how the kids did...especially compared to last year. Taking minutes off a cross country season opener shows how hard these kids trained over the summer and I hope it forecasts a strong season to come."

For full results, click here.

Next up for the Storm is an early 7:45 a.m. start at the Ben Blosser Bulldog Invite, hosted by Big Spring High School (Newville, PA) on Saturday, September 17.