Northampton sophomore Lyndsey Gallagher entered the final half-mile of last Saturday's cross country meet at DeSales University amongst the top five runners, a place where she positioned herself in for much of the race.

But in that stretch that included one last hill, Gallagher made a push that propelled her into a top-three finish.

Gallagher raced by Boyertown's duo of Gillian Kasitz and Emily Schumaker in the last stretch to capture third with a time of 19:36.01 in the 35th Annual DeSales Centaur Invitational. Her finish, along with Joelle Perelli's seventh-place position (19:49.41), placed the Northampton girls in seventh as a team amongst 20 teams.

"I felt like I was running fast the whole time," Gallagher said. "At the end, I knew there were people behind me. I knew I had to pick it up, and give it everything at the end to stay in my place or to move up."

Southern Lehigh's Meseret Hart (19:23.04) took gold in the girls' 5K race, while Marian Catholic's Tina Capparell finished second in a time of 19:31.94.

The Parkland girls edged out Northwestern for the team championship by three points. Four Lady Trojans placed in the top 26.

Like the two do in many of their regular season races, Gallagher and Perelli ran together for much of the first mile on Saturday. That allowed Gallagher to steadily move up in the pack as the race progressed, while Perelli had her teammate in sight for much of the course.

"I felt like I knew the course, so I knew where I had to make my move to keep going," Gallagher said. "I was running with Joelle for the first mile, and we work together well. I just pulled ahead, and I knew it was going to be a fast last mile even though it was hilly."

In the final stretch, she was able to pass a number of runners, and then hold off the rest of the pack as the finish line approached.

"We started off fast," Gallagher said. "I was in like the top 10 the whole race. I was five basically all throughout, and then it was until the last hill that I got third and held it."

Jessica Hendricks (36th, 21:16.69), Olivia Cappolella (79th, 22:55.22), Brooke Ingram (97th, 23:30.15) and Carly Hein (98th, 23:32.57) paced the girls' top-100 finishers.

Noah Rindock paced the Northampton boys with a 54th finish in a time of 17:58.49, and Justin Nikles came in 81st (18:31.23). The Konkrete Kids finished 20th as a team out of 27 squads.

Hatboro Horsham's Casey Comber (15:57.82), Pleasant Valley's Seth Slavin (16:16.83) and Souderton's Joseph Espinal (16:27.32) rounded out the top-three finishers on the boys' side.

The Parkland boys also took first as a team, finishing with three runners in the top 13.