It was a completely innocent mistake. Each year at the Inter-Ac League Cross Country Championships, the defending team champion brings the league trophy down to the meet at Belmont Plateau so it can be presented to the new champs. Last Tuesday the 2024 winners of the girls' meet, the Penn Charter Quakers, simply forgot to bring the trophy with them.

No worries, since they simply would've carried the cup back home with them anyway. Taking the top four places and having their fifth scorer come in eighth, the Quakers overwhelmed the competition, winning the 2025 title with 18 points while Agnes Irwin School was the runner-up with 56.

From there, the team totals dropped down to 79 for third-place Episcopal Academy, 106 for Germantown Academy, and 126 for the Academy of Notre Dame. Springside Chestnut Hill Academy placed sixth with 173 points, followed by Baldwin School, with 192.

PC's Mackenzie Skelly, still only a freshman, repeated as individual champion with a time of 17 minutes, 44.8 seconds, setting a new course record on the historic five-kilometer course at Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. According to the Belmont Plateau Cross Country Hall of Fame, the existing record for high school girls was a time of 17:57 set in 2019 by Lydia Russell, then a senior at Friends Central School.

Skelly said after the race that she was aware of the record but, "I tried not to think about it too hard because I usually don't race best when I'm really focusing on time."

The 2024 boys' Inter-Ac champion, PC's T.J. Zwall, is now a freshman at Williams College. Malvern Prep's Brock Yoder came second to Zwall last year, and Yoder, now a junior, won the 2025 meet with a time of 16:18.7.

As a team, Episcopal Academy claimed the Inter-Ac crown for the fifth year in a row. The Churchmen scored 48 points to the 55 put up by second-place Penn Charter, which was led by junior Matthew Dunn. A time of 16:45.1 secured third place individually for Dunn.

Finishing right after Dunn in fourth place was Germantown Academy junior Tyler Benson (16:56.6). As a team, the GA Patriots placed fourth with 72 points, not far behind third-place Malvern, which scored 65. Haverford School was fifth with 91 points, and Springside Chestnut Hill was sixth with 187.

In the girls' race, Skelly immediately moved out ahead of the pack. Her closest rival in the league, Episcopal junior Kendra Williamson, was sitting out the race due to a hip injury.

Used to mentally setting her own pace, Skelly is accustomed to running alone through most of a race.

"I love pushing myself, just by myself," she said.

There was no one anywhere near her as she exited the wooded middle portion of the course and began her second climb up Flagpole Hill, one of the highest points on the course.

"Belmont feels really historic, and I love that I can see the city [skyline] when I finish up Flagpole," she remarked. "I ran CYO here, so this just feels like a full-circle moment."

As other runners crossed the finish line after Skelly, it became apparent that Penn Charter would retain the team title. Senior Abby Downin placed second in 18:52.5 and junior Marlie Klein was third in 18:59.0. When senior Gwen Hamilton secured fourth place with a time of 19:11.4, the Quakers were in a commanding position.

GA's leader, junior Nieve Keitel, took fifth place just a hair behind Hamilton, clocking in at 19:11.6. The top runners from Notre Dame and Agnes Irwin followed, then PC's winning score was cemented by freshman Beatrice O'Connell, who secured eighth place in 19:41.4.

Skelly clearly enjoys being a part of this Penn Charter team.

"We have a great group of girls and they're some of my best friends," she said. "We know that, together, we can dominate out on the course here."

The Irwin Owls put all of their five scorers in the top 15 to capture second place. GA's score was completed by freshman Shyna Patel (19th; 21:44.0), sophomore Annabelle Steckel (24th; 22:41.5), freshman Millie Evarts (28th; 23:08.2) and senior Lauren Truong (30th; 23:37.9).

The scorers for Springside Chestnut Hill were sophomore Bella Tinneny (22nd; 22:17.7), junior Claire Lynch (31st; 24:04.6), sophomore Melia Echewa (35th; 24:29.3), senior Lauren Wilson (41st; 26:32.0) and sophomore Suhaila Elamin (44th; 27:29.4).

In the boys' race, Malvern's Yoder began to set the pace relatively early, and he won by more than 16 seconds over runner-up Curtis Conner, an Episcopal senior. However, the Friars' hopes of a top finish in the team scoring began to diminish was they only placed one more runner in the top dozen.

After a third-place showing by Dunn, the Penn Charter standard bearer, the Quakers had senior Peyton Burnett come in eighth (17:32.2), and then 12th and 13th place went to junior Leo Kelly (18:00.2) and senior Andrew Marrone (18:03.7).

For GA, the fourth-place finisher, Benson, was joined in the top 10 by senior Walter Mulroy (sixth; 17:19.6).

Episcopal was running just a little ahead of Charter in terms of the team score, with Conner backed up by teammates placing fifth, ninth, and 11th. The Quakers actually completed their team scoring ahead of EA when senior Ben Berger came home 19th in 18:15.7. If Episcopal's fifth runner was more than a few places after that, PC could have a shot at the championship.

That scenario didn't pan out as 20th place went to a Haverford School harrier but 21st was snapped up by EA junior Max Burman, who helped his team prevail by seven points in the team scoring.

After GA's two top-10 runners, the Patriots had sophomore Grady Moore in 15th place (18:05.8), and seniors Ethan Na (18:35.6) and Evan Badami (18:40.2) take 23rd and 24th place, respectively.

The first of the Springside Chestnut Hill competitors to finish was sophomore Jose Martinez Toledo, who placed 33rd in 19:48.4. The other four Blue Devils entered in the meet wound up in places 37 through 40. They were seniors Roman McNichols (21:34.2), Reed Knoblock (21:38.6), and Quinton McDonnell (23:01.4), and freshman Noah Branzuela (23:12.5).