The Emmaus boys cross country team ran a calculated race, but fell behind its top competitors during last Tuesday’s District 11 Class 3A Championship, held at Blue Mountain Ski Resort in Carbon County.

The Hornets finished in sixth place, with five of the team’s seven boys finishing within 26 seconds of each other, for a 19:23 average time and 141 points. Parkland took the gold with a total of 84 points, just one ahead of second-place Southern Lehigh.

“Usually a team with that tight of a pack will place very high at districts,” said Emmaus head coach Kelly Bracetty. “But they let some of the other teams get out of their reach early on and on a hilly course like Blue Mountain, you just can’t recover from it.”

Leading the way for the green and gold was senior Nick Buonanno in 19:15, which ranked him 21st overall. Roughly one second behind him was teammate senior Geoffrey Kleinberg in 19:16.88, good for 25th place. Another senior, Keshav Shankar, took 28th, while junior Ethan Strezempak claimed 30th at 19:24.60.

Sophomore Dominic Nunez finished roughly 18 seconds behind Strezempak for 37th place overall, and senior Cameron Carter rounded out the Hornet contingent in 45th.

“Overall, I’m very happy with their improvements throughout the season,” Bracetty said.

One of the distinctive changes to this year’s district format was a new course and that each race on the Blue Mountain course was split into two different heats.

“Instead of 16 teams racing together, only eight ran at each time and then the results were merged together at the end,” Bracetty said.

The tension between the final meet of the regular season and districts is always there for athletes. Sometimes, it requires a coach to adjust their runners’ training and strategies.

“Leading up to districts, I really try to listen to how the athlete is feeling,” Bracetty said. “That might mean I change the workout or the game plan and that’s OK. Sometimes you just have to know what the athlete needs and how to adjust the training to meet their needs.”