In their last regular-season tuneup before this week’s Inter-Ac League Cross Country Championships, runners from Penn Charter and Springside Chestnut Hill traveled to Germantown Academy Oct. 13 for a three-way boys’ meet.

Placing five runners in the top eight overall, the PC Quakers carried the day, even though GA senior Tyler Benson was first across the finish line and was the only competitor to complete the race in under 18 minutes (17:59). Penn Charter topped the Patriots in a dual meet scoring format, 22-33.

This fall, the SCH Blue Devils are short on numbers and experience, with most of their team made up of freshmen looking to build up the program over the next few years. They had one runner place in the top 10, but didn’t fare well in the team scoring, succumbing to Penn Charter, 16-47, and to GA, 18-45.

Looking ahead to the Inter-Ac championship meet Oct. 19, five-time defending league champion Episcopal Academy has been running well this fall and again appears to be the team to beat. The 2025 individual champion, Malvern Prep’s Brock Yoder, is back for the Friars as a senior this fall.

In the 2025 team competition, Episcopal was given a strong challenge by the PC Quakers, who were separated from the Churchmen by only seven points. Charter’s top finisher was Matthew Dunn, who is now a senior and finished second behind Benson in last week’s tri-meet.

Benson led the Patriots at last year’s league championships, where GA was the fourth-place team and Springside Chestnut Hill was sixth.

Last week at GA, the wooded sections of the Patriots’ campus course had not completely dried out from the drenching rain two days earlier. The runners later emerged back out into open, then eventually left the grass to finish the race by running roughly 300 meters on the track in Carey Stadium.

Unsure footing on a few slippery portions of the course probably raised times a bit, and in any event the purpose of the meet was not to go for new personal records.

After Benson became the individual winner, PC’s Dunn finished second in 18 minutes and 15 seconds. Farther back, but close together, came two more Quakers. Leo Kelley came in third in 19:06, and his junior classmate Abel Jones was fourth in 19:08. At 19:12, senior JJ Gould became the Patriots’ second finisher, then PC put its fourth man across the line in sixth place. This was senior Gavin Sutton, who clocked in at 19:19.

Sutton won a little finishing sprint against a charging Jose Martinez of Springside Chestnut Hill (19:20). Coming in seventh, Martinez was the first finisher for the Blue Devils, and their only runner to place within the top 20 overall. Penn Charter freshman Tendo McKether picked up eighth place in 19:25; the next nine runners to cross the line were all GA Patriots.

Starting off the string was freshman Ethan Leorda, placing ninth in 19:30, and finishing off the 19-minute bracket were sophomore John Henry Brusca (10th place; 19:37) and senior Liam Connelly (11th; 19:57). Rounding out the top dozen finishers overall was junior Logan Shelton (20:10); he was followed by freshman Dhruva Mondhadi (13th; 20:18) and sophomore Luke Kenesky (14th; 20:27).

Another GA 10th-grader, Luke Leoni, finished up 15th in 20:33, and completing this string of Patriot finishers were freshman Henry Brownstein (16th; 20:53) and senior Alex Foster (17th; 21:01).

Rounding out the top 20 finishers were senior Thomas Le (18th; 21:23) and freshman Finn Gantt (19th; 21:27) of Penn Charter, and senior Jack Dashine (20th; 22:03) of Germantown Academy.

The number-two runner for Springside Chestnut Hill, freshman Michael Pascarella, finished 23rd overall with a time of 22:42, and no other members of the young Blue Devil squad made it into the top 30.