Three years ago Del Vierling ran in his first cross country league championship race. It was the first year for the new league and the first year for Vierling as a cross country runner.

He broke the top 100 in that first championship race, finishing 95th. He’s gotten a whole lot better since then. He cracked the top 20 last year, finishing 14th, and soon began training hard for his senior season.

His hard work paid off last week with a seventh-place finish at the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Championships at Bethlehem Municipal. He was one of two Hornets to earn a top-10 finish as junior Abby Dalton took seventh place in the girls race.

Vierling used not only his hard work, but also experience to earn his best league finish in three years.

“I feel like I ran a really smart race,” said Vierling. “Last week when we were at Parkland I came out too fast ahead of [Sam] Morgan and [Hailemichael] Geiger, well ahead. I told myself I’m going to take it easy this week and I’m going to pass people in the second half and I really did that.”

Trying to go out ahead of the top two runners on the league’s top team might not have been the best idea. However, Vierling is a fast learner.

“As smart a race as Abby ran, if it’s possible his was smarter,” said Emmaus head coach Dan Wessner. “He was out really conservative. He might not have been in the top 30 when we were in the first mile. To work his way up to seventh, it’s the smart way to race. Sometimes it’s hard to do it in this long of a race. To put a race together like he did, to go out conservatively then to work through and have a kick like that, it’s as close to perfect as you can run, strategy-wise.”

Vierling estimated he was close to 40th before he made his kick in the final mile. He plans to run another smart race this week.

“I really trained hard this summer,” said Vierling. “I might have trained a little too hard. I feel like it’s paying off. Districts is the time I really want it to pay off. States is icing on the cake.”

Dalton ran with a similar strategy. On an unseasonably warm October afternoon, she made sure not to go out too fast and was able to pick off the competition at the end.

“She ran a really smart race,” said Wessner. “With the weather conditions, she was out conservatively and then had a nice, big finish. Once we got out to the second part of the race, when we got up the hill, she was much more aggressive and worked her way through.”

Dalton is hoping to earn her third straight trip to the state championship meet. She’s finished in the top 10 at the last two district meets. While her goal is to advance, she hasn’t set a goal of a time or place to finish and will simply run her best when the time comes.

“I don’t like limiting myself through times,” she said. “It’s good to plan, but I don’t want to over-plan and limit myself. I’ve ended up surprising myself and getting two minutes under what I expected. I just give it all my energy. I just try to surprise myself.”

Both Emmaus teams finished sixth at the EPC Championship meet.

For the boys team, Jacob Brown (33rd), Charlie Norelli (37th), Mason Brown (38th) and Kyle Kleinberg (64th) rounded out the top five. Also running for the Hornet boys team were Max Perry, Mark Magee, Jon Csensits, Andrew Gigler and Paule Petre.

In the girls race, Abby Heilenman (22nd), Emma Keightly (26th), Amber Ziegler (51st) and Amanda LaVana (55th) rounded out the top five. The rest of Emmaus league championship girls contingent included Elizabeth Ninesling, Edna Creelman, Sophia Yialamas, Jillian Bray and Katherin Downey.

Stroudsburg Allana Powlette won the girls title and the Mountaineers won the girls team title by finishing in the top three places individually.

Parkland won the boys team title and Pleasant Valley’s Seth Slavin won the boys individual title.

The District 11 Championships will be held Wednesday at Bethlehem Municipal.