Pittston Area cross country looking to overcome smaller rosters – The Sunday Dispatch

Nicole Zambetti returns to the Lady Patriots cross country roster this year. – Sunday Dispatch file photo

Pittston Area’s cross country teams enter the season with the minimum numbers needed for team competition, but enough experience to keep up with many of their opponents as long as they can maintain those numbers.

Teams can enter as many runners as they choose in regular-season cross country competition, but only the top five runners make up the team score and other the top seven can impact opponent’s scoring by displacing other runners.

As they prepared to open the season Saturday at the Cliff Robbins Invitational, the Lady Patriots had a seven-runner lineup and the Patriots had just five runners working with new coach Katie O’Boyle.

Nicole Zambetti, a two-time District 2 Class 3A medalist, is back for her fourth season and will lead the way for the girls team, which is coached by Joe Struckus.

The Lady Patriots slipped to 8-10 a year ago after going a combined 99-19 in the previous seven Wyoming Valley Conference seasons.

Sophomore Marissa Gubitoso, junior Brooke Bulford and senior Kara Miller also return from last season’s district lineup.

Senior Hannah Getz and junior Janelle Dudek have experience in the program and will be counted on to be more prominent this season.

Freshman Hailey Walling was on the school’s junior high team last season.

“We’re looking just to be competitive this year,” Struckus said. “We’ll look for some of those girls who were not in our top five before to score points and get some of those key places that were lost to graduation.

“There are big shoes to fill out of that senior class that we lost.”

Pittston Area is coming off a 13-5 boys season that it completed by finishing ninth out of 18 teams in District 2 Class 2A.

O’Boyle is a former Pittston Area and Bloomsburg University cross country and track runner, who has been coaching in the program. She coached junior high cross country and has been an assistant coach, working with distance runners, in track and field for more than a decade.

All five runners on the team are upperclassmen who have been part of the program.

Senior Nate Ridgley and junior David Bulford were among the team’s top three runners last season when senior Peyton O’Boyle also consistently figured into the scoring.

Nick Ridgley, a senior, and Billy Bonczek, a junior who was part of the seven-runner district lineup, are also back.

“Obviously, we want some more runners out,” coach O’Boyle said. “With the start of the school year, we’re hoping we can get a couple more, but those runners have been working.”

Nicole Zambetti returns to the Lady Patriots cross country roster this year.

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