Piper Munyon ran on the White Oak Park cross country course for the first time Oct. 17 at the Tri-State Coaches Association championships.
The Gateway freshman completed her race that day in 20 minutes, 22.33 seconds and placed 36th out of all of the WPIAL runners in the Class 3A race.
Returning to White Oak for WPIALs a week later, her goal, with that experience and a strategy in place, was to improve her time.
She did just that as she ran the course in 20:07.5 and placed 43rd overall in a deep Class 3A field.
"You could see how much that experience from Tri-States helped her," Gateway coach Brent Rogus said.
"She had a great race at WPIALs and set another personal record for herself. I was really happy with what we saw out of her. She wanted to get out a little quicker than she did the week before, and she did that. She competed really well throughout. We gave her targets, and she gave herself targets for people to go after, and she went after them."
The race at WPIALs was Munyon's fourth this season as she had a commitment to the Gateway girls soccer team.
She first represented the Gators at the season-opening Gateway Invitational at Boyce Park on Aug. 31, and she also ran at the A.J. Everhart Uniontown Invitational on Sept. 28.
Munyon finished seventh in the girls varsity race at Uniontown with a time of 22:01.20.
"If she is dedicated to training, is able to stay healthy, and has the right mental edge, the future is bright where she can continue to improve and do great things at WPIALs and maybe even states," Rogus said.
Sophomore Gianna Laurenti didn't officially run cross country this fall as she instead focused on training for the upcoming winter swim season.
But she came back to compete at WPIALs and ran to a time of 23:24.3 (149th), 26 seconds faster and 11 spots better than her WPIAL finish as a freshman.
"She ran a good first mile, and then the lack of mileage through not racing and training the last couple of months kind of caught up to her," Rogus said.
"But she competed well. We were glad to see her and see that she wanted to race."
Fellow sophomore Jai'Anna Mahoney made her WPIAL debut and placed 179th in a time of 26:55.
"She ran a fair race," Rogus said.
"She was a little faster the week before at Tri-States. She found herself in space at times, not around other girls. It's hard whenever you're by yourself and there's gaps in front and back with no one to compete against. Time wise, that can be challenging."
On the boys side, senior Kairell McCoy wrapped up his Gateway varsity career with a personal-best time of 17:42.80 in the Class 3A boys race on the White Oak course. The time landed him in 96th overall.
The time also was a 16-second improvement from Tri-States and was close to 50 seconds better than what he ran at WPIALs last year.
"His first 100 yards (at WPIALs) was slow. He was way back," Rogus said.
"Then he started moving through the field quite nicely and got close to where he needed to be around the mile mark (56th place). But he got discouraged because he thought he was still too far back with how he started his race back behind everyone. He kind of gave up on himself a little bit. He just wasn't able to recover and have the race he wanted."
The rest of the boys' contingent were underclassmen this season and will be eligible to come back next year for another run at WPIALs.
All of the runners except for McCoy ran in JV races this year to build their experience before competing in the varsity race at Tri-States in preparation for WPIALs.
Also competing for the Gateway boys were juniors Robert Kennedy and Abdulwasey Syed, sophomore Colbin Kuehn, and freshmen Evan Pelc and Tyler Lamantia.
"Robert hit the wall the last 100 yards or so," Rogus said.
"He fell, got up, fell, got up. That took a little bit of a toll. He was right there with Isaac at two and a half miles (160th) before finishing a little further back place wise and time wise.
"It was Colbin's first race back from injury, and he wasn't all the way back to where he wanted to be. I thought Evan and Tyler ran fine for their first WPIAL races. I am excited to see what this whole group can do coming back next season."
Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at [email protected].