Shaler cross country team keeps dropping times

By: HSSN Staff
Sunday, September 24, 2017 | 11:00 PM

Danielle Eshelman wants to take every opportunity to learn what it takes to be a strong cross country runner.

The Shaler freshman picked people's brains before her first meet at the Red, White and Blue Invitational at the Schenley Oval.

“They were jogging the course,” Eshelman said. “I asked a few of them, ‘Why are you jogging the course when you have to race?' ”

For Eshelman — and many of her teammates — the first few weeks about the season have been about finding an edge. Shaler hasn't won much, but the Titans are efficient at dropping their times.

At that first meet, Eshelman was Shaler's top finisher, placing 43rd of 257 runners with a time of 20 minutes, 12.2 seconds. Underclassmen took four of the top five spots for Shaler, with freshman Haley Sahr, sophomore Bella Pilyih, freshman Lauren Raida and senior Adeline Kubisek coming in behind Eshelman.

“On the girls side, a lot of them showed up during our training,” Titans coach Justin Eskra said about the summer work. “At the Red, White and Blue meet they all took control of what was going on. At the season's progressed they keep improving every week. I wasn't sure how well they were going to do stepping up to the 5K, but they took it in stride.”

All have seen major time drops since the beginning of the summer. Eshelman estimates when she ran her first competitive 5K, her time was between 23 and 25 minutes.

During a tri-meet with North Hills and North Allegheny last week, Eshelman's time was down to around 20 minutes flat.

It's a trend, for the both the boys and girls, this season.

“Everything's been going very well,” Eskra said. “The kids returning from last year's team, everyone is running 2 minutes to 30 seconds faster on the same courses as last year.”

On the boys side, sophomore Dalton Kalbaugh led Shaler with a 39th-place finish, crossing the finish line in 16:44.4. Junior Noah Paszkowski, senior Maxwell Borza, freshman Jonathan Zang and freshman Luke Franks rounded out the top five for the Titans.

“It's hard since I'm a freshman,” Eshelman said. “I'm running against a lot older girls that are in better shape. That have been running longer than I have been. More of a challenge, more distance, more hills.”

Josh Rizzo is a freelance writer.

Tags: Shaler