The fall 2020 high school sports season has seen a lot of changes, a lot of what’s been called the new normal.

One constant over the past four years has been Lexi Rushatz’s performance for the Catasauqua cross country team.

The senior had run to top-15 finishes in each of her first three Colonial League Championship meets. She did it again in her final trip to leagues.

Rushatz ran to 13th place last Wednesday at Bicentennial Park, finishing the race in 20:56.71.

“I feel like I ran pretty well,” she said after the race. “We ran this as our home course the first meet and I [ran a personal best time] by almost a whole minute. I feel like that was a pretty strong performance.

“I wanted to get top-10 to place (at leagues), but I am satisfied. Our league is pretty competitive this year. I definitely wanted at least top 15 and I did get that goal so I felt pretty good throughout the whole race.”

This season marked the first time the league held it’s meet at Bicentennial Park. It was moved this year from it’s traditional location at DeSales University.

Rushatz was hoping to better her career-best finish at leagues, which was an 11th-place performance freshman year, but her primary goal was to stay in the top-15 for the fourth-straight season.

“That’s kind of where I’ve been at so I definitely wanted to stay within that range for senior year,” she said.

She was right on the edge of achieving that goal for most of the race until she secured her spot with a late kick.

“I was like 14th or 15th the whole race and then at the end I was able to pick off two people, one right at the end, so that was definitely good,” she said.

While many high school athletes compete in two or more sports, Rushatz is on two teams that both compete in the fall season. With the Rough Rider field hockey season coming to an end before the league cross country meet, she was able to devote more time to running during the days leading up to the race.

“This is my main sport that I focus on more,” she said. “With the current situation it helped me because field hockey is over already. I could focus on my race this week.”

She moves on to this week’s District 11 meet with hopes of returning to states for the third time in her career. Catty moves up to Class 2A after running in the A field the past few seasons, so some of the competition will be new to Rushatz.

The top-seven girls Class 2A runners who are not part of state-qualified teams will move on to states, so it’s likely the top eight or nine, even 10 finishers could all advance to run in Hershey next week.

Rushatz has set a top-seven finish at districts as her goal so that will ensure her qualification for states. She made it to states her freshman and junior years and is hoping her high school cross country career culminates in Hershey.

“We’ll be running against some different teams,” she said. “I’m hoping to go out making it to states my senior year.”

Palmerton’s Natalie Mosier won this year’s Colonial League girls title. The Blue Bomber sophomore ran the course in 19:36.24 to beat Southern Lehigh’s Maura Lenhart (19:41.69) by over five seconds.

Palisades sophomore Thomas Smigo won the boys race with a time of 15:52.15, just ahead of Saucon Valley’s Matthew Chaikowsky (15:43.65).

Southern Lehigh won both team titles last week.

The Spartans’ top-five runners all finished in the top-10 in the girls race to cruise to the title 31-78 over second-place Northwestern.

In the boys race, Southern Lehigh edged Northwestern by just four points (51-55) for the team title.

Other Rough Rider runners who competed at leagues included: Cole Brown (60th), Trevor Regits (63rd), Jaryn Hartranft (64th), Angel Font (71st), Luke Colon (73rd), Dorian Hoagland (74th), Edward Nina Popa (79th), Jared Schneck (81st) and Gavin Fehr (82nd).

In the girls race, Catty’s Lucy Brubaker finished 33rd, followed by teammates Alivia Bear (34th), Kaylee Weidaw (36th), Ashley Ritters (38th), Breonna Brinkley (40th) and Sophia Pacchioli (63rd).

BOYS

Team scores

and legend

1. Southern Lehigh (SL) 51, 2. Northwestern Lehigh (NW) 55, 3. Bangor (B) 105, 4. Palisades (Pali) 122, 5. Palmerton (Palm) 144, 6. Moravian Academy (MA) 164, 7. Wilson (W) 173, 8. Saucon Valley (SV) 175, 9. Pen Argyl (PA) 232, 10. Catasauqua (C) 284, 11. Salisbury (S) 293.

Top 10 Individuals

1. Thomas Smigo (Pali) 15:52.15, 2. Matthew Chaikowsky (SV) 15:53.65, 3. Alexander Kane (SL) 16:08.44, 4. Sam Bower (NW) 16:34.51, 5. Dominik Lisicky (SL) 16:37.79, 6. Matt Santana (NW) 16:49.78, 7. Cole Chukoskie (NW) 16:56.23, 8. Joshua Deremer (PA) 17:03.78, 9. Cameron Stout (B) 17:14.46, 10. Mitchell Campbell (Pali) 17:16.9.

GIRLS

Team scores

and legend

1. Southern Lehigh (SL) 31, 2. Northwestern Lehigh (NW) 78, 3. Wilson (W) 107, 4. . Palisades (Pali) 120, 5. Saucon Valley (SV) 122, 6. Catasauqua (C) 141, 7. Moravian Academy (MA) 177, 8. Bangor (B) 198, 9. Palmerton (P) 210.

Top 10 individuals

1. Natalie Mosier (Palm) 19:36.24, 2. Maura Lenhard (SL) 19:41.69, 3. Alyssa Errico (W) 19:50.46, 4. Lauren Meinhold (SL) 20:01.99, 5. Angelina Klein (NW) 20:05.36, 6. Emma Szydlow (SV) 20:08.3, 7. Annefloor Fooij (SL) 20:15.78, 8. Alaina Patel (Pali) 20:17.36, 9. Sara Reguera (Pali) 20:19.14, 10. Ashley Meinhold (SL) 20:20.74.