By Rick Samuel

Metro area -- Catholic Central and Shrine were the big winners in the team portion of the recent Nike-Holly Cross Country Invitational, and Tom Girardot of Brother Rice, Beverly Hills scored an individual championship.

The Shamrocks had four finishers in the top 10 to take the Division 1 race with a low score of 52 points, well ahead of St. Francis DeSales, Toledo. Andrew

Garcia-Garrison led the Shamrocks. Girardot notched his third invitational victory of the season for Rice, which placed sixth as a team. Ben Nagle, Matt Sutton and Ben Kendall packed together well to lead Shrine to the Division 5 team title.

Shrine’s girls also did well, finishing second in their division. Anna Goike and Emily Guirey both had top-10 efforts. In Division 3, Notre Dame Prep, Pontiac took eighth as Sara Barron and Rachel Termarsch led the way.

In the most recent state cross country rankings, Catholic Central is the top-ranked boys’ team in Division 1. Among the girls, Regina is ranked second in Division 2; Shrine is No. 9 in Division 4.

DeLaSalle won its own invitational, led by Andrew Cusmano’s second-place run. Scott Ratkowski, Alex Ulewicz, Ethan Johnson and John VanBerkum followed him.
Mercy, Farmington Hills, won the Autumn Classic invite. Heather Smith was No. 2 overall in the race and teammate Lindsay Tartaglia was ninth.

Regina, Warren, won a league jamboree in Wixom with 24 points. Divine Child, Dearborn placed second (63).  Mercy’s Smith was the individual winner, ahead of Kelsie Schwartz (Regina) and Michelle Kerr (DC). Cassie Bloch, Jenny Ponkowski, Christina Ridella and Lizzie Bloch swept to the next four finishes.

Lutheran North, Macomb took the girls’ Co-Ed Intersectional jamboree and Divine Child captured the Boys’ Double A meet at Royal Oak. Rachel Stathaskis of North won the girls’ race; the boys’ winner was DC’s Nick Soter, who was followed by teammates Matt Mangulabnan, Griffin Miller, Michael Brichta and Michael Gutierrez.