Will Alpaugh met his goal of placing in the top five of the EPC Cross Country Championships last Tuesday at Bethlehem Municipal Golf Course, coming in third in 16:36 for the Freedom Patriots.

“I’m pretty happy with today’s result,” said Alpaugh.

Easton’s Kevin Lapsansky won the race in 16:10, and Pleasant Valley’s Seth Slavin was second in 16:22.

“I was with Seth mostly, and then he dropped me off at the second mile, but even then I was close to him,” Alpaugh said.

Despite running with a cramp for the second half of the race, Alpaugh was able to get ahead of two Parkland runners, who eventually placed fourth and sixth.

“The Parkland coach yelled that I was dying, and I didn’t want to fall back,” laughed Alpaugh.

Isaac Gross was the Patriots’ next finisher, but he placed 23rd in 17:49, behind Brendan Reilly and Jonah George from Liberty.

George said, “Our coach wanted us to catch Isaac, and he told Pedro [Larotta] to catch up with us.”

Reilly placed 21st in 17:45, and George was 22nd in 17:47.

“The two hills is where it starts getting really competitive, so if you power up those hills, you get a good advantage,” said George.

Reilly and George picked off other runners at the second and third mile.

Reilly said, “We talked before about not going out too fast. You need to get good position and pick people off throughout the race. I wouldn’t have been able to pass without Jonah.”

Larotta ended up placing 27th in 17:57.

Josh Noel placed 36th in 18:18 for the Patriots.

Bryce Orloski was 39th in 18:21, and Ivan Korpics was 45th in 18:36, both for Bethlehem Catholic.

In team results, Freedom placed sixth, Liberty placed eighth, and Becahi was 11th. Parkland was the overall winner of the meet, and Easton came in second.