For many high school cross country teams, it would be a daunting task to replace three of the top five runners from a team that finished third in the state a year ago.

For the Northwestern Lehigh girls team, it’s business as usual. The Tigers have won six of the last seven Colonial League titles and have only lost a few dual meets during that stretch. Over that period they’ve graduated some great runners and have always found ways to reload for the next season.

This year is another case of the team reloading rather than rebuilding.

While Alyssa Zack, Maddie Consuelos and Sarah Supplee have graduated and will all run in college, the team has enough talent returning and moving up from middle school that it should not miss a beat this year.

“I think we’ll be fine,” said 21st-year head coach Chris Stitzel. “Southern Lehigh and Palisades are probably going to be our main threats. If we can hang with them with our freshmen, by the time we get to postseason I think we’ll be all right.”

Stitzel is referring to the fact that some of his returning runners are recovering from injuries while an influx of freshmen are earning their places in the line up.

This year’s team has just two seniors in Allison Costa and Kristen Brown. Costa, who finished 14th in last year’s Colonial League championships and 22nd at districts, will likely be among the team top two runners this season, while Brown is recovering from injuries and will rejoin the line up some time during the season.

Freshmen Angelina Klein, Maci Fisher, Alexis Vennera and Claire Costa are all expected to run with the varsity team this fall. At a recent time trial they were all in the top seven. Costa led the way, followed by Kline and Fisher to round out the top three.

Junior Kailyn Jones (fifth at leagues, 14th at districts in 2018) and sophomore Molly McGorry (11th at districts, ninth in league) were also part of last year’s championship team. Jones returns and was among the top seven at the recent time trial. McGorry will be in the mix but is still recovering from injuries and will be back in the line up after the season is underway.

Stitzel said those runners will likely make up his top seven, with Madison Santana also able to help at the varsity level.

The rest of the team includes juniors Mya Conti, Taya Derr, Brianna Fritziner, Emma Greenawalt and Sarah Korbich; sophomores Roselyn Bernhard (31st at districts, 23rd at leagues last year), Molly Boushell, Mary Carlson, Faith Crisomia, Kaylee Konyak, Nicole Landes and Emma Nelson; and freshmen Emily Fagan, Kelly Moloney and Muse Sheyanne.

Northwestern went 23-1 last year, took first place at the Colonial League Championships and in District 11 Class 2A.

With only one District 11 Class 2A girls team making it to states this year, the Tigers will have to repeat as district champs in order to qualify for states.

“I think we can make some noise in leagues and districts,” said Stitzel.