The Emmaus boys cross country team will send three runners to this weekend’s PIAA Championships.

Juniors Conor Fisher and Jared Petre, along with sophomore Ryan Fach, earned the trip to states by finishing in the top 16 places at last week’s District 11 Championships.

The top 10 runners who are not part of state qualifying teams earn individual bids to the meet. All three Hornets were well within the top 10 places when runners from district champ Parkland and runner-up Easton are removed from results.

Fisher, a junior who has been the team’s top runner in most races over the past two seasons, led the team with a 12th-place finish last Wednesday at DeSales University.

After finishing 13th at last week’s East Penn Conference Championships, Fisher entered districts unsure of his chances to get to states. But he made up his mind while on the course that he was determined to make it back to Hershey to run with the best in the state for the third time in three seasons.

“Going into it I wasn’t really sure,” he said. “I was just going to run my own race. As soon as I got into the groove of it I realized this is what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to go to states, so we’re going to go do this.”

Fach placed 15th overall last week in the first district championship race of his varsity career.

“Probably could have been a little better but I’m just glad I made it to states,” he said, adding that it was his primary goal. “Just to make it to states. That’s what I was focused on.”

Petre, who finished 16th at districts, is looking forward to returning to the state championships for the second straight year.

“I know what to expect. The course is a hard course at states. I think I’ll be ready this year. Last year I didn’t do too good, but I think I’ll do better this year.”

Emmaus finished fourth as a team at districts with 99 points. Parkland (40) won the team title, followed by Easton (55) and Nazareth (69).

Junior Richard Will (26th) and senior Connor Miller (30th) rounded out the Hornets’ team score. Emmaus senior Tyler Finck (37th) and sophomore Sean Daubert (56th) also ran at the district championship meet.

The Emmaus boys team went 14-2 for third place in the EPC this season before finishing third as a team at the league meet.

“I’m really proud of my team this season,” said Fisher. “I think we all did phenomenally. We all had our ups and downs, which every team does. And we were really close-knit, which was awesome.”

“We did pretty good this year,” said Petre, who has run at districts all three years of high school. “We had a rough meet at the beginning of the year against Freedom. We got a lot better. We wish we would have done a little bit better [at districts]. We’re going to do a lot better next year. I think this season was really good overall.”