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Woodridge senior Drake Sulzer (right) won the Akron Division II District boys cross country meet Saturday at Goodyear Heights Metro Park. St. Vincent-St. Mary standout Patrick O'Brien finished second.

AKRON, Ohio – There isn’t a better girls high school sports rivalry in all of Summit County and on a sun-splashed Saturday afternoon another chapter was played out at Goodyear Heights Metro Park.

At the Akron Division II District Cross Country championships, St. Vincent-St. Mary and Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy were the prohibitive favorites.

Picking a winner?  It’s 50-50.  It’s usually close and this year’s meet to qualify for regionals was just another example.

St. V-M is the two-time defending state champion. CVCA won it in 2008.

In impressive fashion, CVCA had last month won the Boardman Spartan Invitational. But the Irish won Saturday’s district meet by three points over their arch rivals, 33-36.

You might think these teams would be bitter, nasty rivals, having gone head-to-head in so many important meets.  In fact, quite the opposite is true.

“They’ve gotten in this habit over the past several years -- they exchange gifts. They gave each other gifts. This isn’t wrestling,” St. V-M coach Dan Lancianese said with a laugh. “It’s a strange sport. I’ll never understand it.”

Eight of the first 10 runners to cover the 5,000-meter course were either from St. V-M or CVCA. The Irish ran 2-3-5-7. The Royals, of coach George Hallis, ran 1-4-6-10.

CVCA freshman Samantha Bockoven was the individual winner (19:36.1) with St. V-M senior Tessa Weigand (19:54.86) and Marissa Rossetti (19:55.08) in pursuit.

“We practice here every day, so we know (the course) pretty well,” Weigand said. “I try to forget about (the hill) until I get to it because it’s pretty hard.”

About the rivalry, Weigand said, “It’s fun because both teams are really good and we both want to win.”

Bockoven, who also won the Spartan Invitational, started running in seventh grade and said, “I was just going to go out and push it as hard as I could.”

What does she like best about cross country?

“I like that it’s a team sport and an individual sport,” the freshman sensation said.

And while St. V-M and CVCA were locked into the top two spots from the time they stepped off the bus, three more state-ranked teams were battling for the two remaining slots to qualify for the Tiffin regional.

Portage Trail Conference members Woodridge (85 points), Crestwood (89) and Field (117) were competing in a game of cross-country musical chairs and Field was left standing.

Earlier this month, the Northeast District Board decided to move Crestwood into the Akron District from the Trumbull County venue and that created a talented logjam.

“Field has had a great year,” Woodridge coach Jeff Howard said. “They’ve been ranked as high as 10th or 12th in the state and then on October 6 they decide to bring in Crestwood and I talked to the district board and they have reasons people agree or disagree with, but it’s tough.

“You have to peak a week earlier and it might take 20 days to peak. You have to bring kids down and when they make a decision like that you go from feeling pretty good about the top four and all of sudden you’ve got to run for your life to be fourth.

"So, it changed things for us. We had to back them down a week earlier than we planned on backing them down and now we’ve got to hope that we can hold that peak for another week.”

Complete AKRON DIVISION II Girls Results, Click HERE

Buchtel coach John Scott said Goodyear Heights Metro Park is a favorite course of the athletes, spectators and coaches.

“I can walk to different places and get the kids’ splits on every mile,” Scott said. “You can’t do that at some other courses.”

The fans being tight along the running path makes Goodyear Heights a thrilling course to run.

“This is where I ran when I was a kid,” Scott said. “It’s a great place, particularly on a beautiful day like this. This is cross country right here.  It’s just great.”

Weigand echoed Scott’s take on Goodyear Heights.

“I just love this course because all the fans are right there. Besides states, I like this meet the best.”  

Akron District Division II Boys

At Akron, Woodridge senior Drake Sulzer finished at 16:52 to win the meet and lead this team to regionals.

St. Vincent-St. Mary won the team title with 36 points. Woodridge was second with 50 points, followed by Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy (75) and Tallmadge (78). The top four teams advance to the regional meet.

Sulzer was one of 16 individuals who advance to regionals. St. V-M runners Patrick O’Brien (17:06), Mick Iacofano (17:19) and Mike Hurley (17:21) placed second through fourth individually. CVCA sophomore Ben Bockoven rounded out the top five.

Complete AKRON DIVISION II Boys Results, Click HERE

Of the 16 individual qualifiers, only Norton junior Spencer Ziegler and Streetsboro senior Pete Hannan advanced without their teams.

Patrick Ferguson (Tallmadge, senior, 17:33) finished sixth, followed by John Harry (7th, Woodridge, sophomore, 17:34), Will Anderson (8th, CVCA, junior, 17:38), Matthew Wojcik (9th, Woodridge, junior, 17:40) and Brian McGovern (10th, Tallmadge, sophomore, 17:45).

Ziegler finished 11th at 17:52, St. V-M senior Sean Poholski was 12th at 17:56, Hannan was 13th at 17:57, CVCA freshman Ryan Adams was 14th at 18:02, St. V-M junior Matt Oswald was 15th at 18:04, and Woodridge freshman Mason Cottrill was 16th at 18:14.