Salisbury’s senior Shane Artis picked ran to the third straight top-10 Colonial League Championship finish in his stellar career last Thursday at the annual league meet at DeSales University.

The senior took fifth place for the second consecutive year, running the race in 17 minutes and 10.72 seconds.

“I knew coming in here going to be windy and it was going to be tough,” he said after the race. “I was going to have to run pretty smart. Everything had to be played out strategically. Unfortunately the hills got the best of me today, but it wasn’t a bad race overall.”

Artis finished nine seconds behind Pen Argyl’s Anthony Coppolella (17:01.77) in fourth place and four seconds ahead of Southern Lehigh’s Dominik Lisicky (17:14.72) in sixth.

Palisades freshman Thomas Smigo won the race in 16:21.5.

Artis, who finished fifth at leagues last year and ninth as a sophomore, moves on to next week’s district championships looking to qualify for states for the third straight season and to challenge for the top spot.

Artis finished third in Class 2A last season behind a pair of seniors who are now running in college.

He’ll see some of the top runners from the Colonial League move up to Class 3A next week while he runs in Class 2A against a mix of Colonial League and Schuylkill League competition.

“We have a couple guys leaving and a couple guys coming in from the other areas,” he said. “I’m just going to run my race smart and see what the weather is like and hopefully try and win it.”

The Falcons finished 11th as a team at the league championships.

Salisbury’s Carver Moyer finished 56th overall, followed by teammates Kyle Artis (97th), Stuart Carl (100th) and Hunter Bleam (101th) rounded out the team scoring. Luis Mongilutz (107th) and Sawyer Wiggins (108th) also ran in the race for Salisbury.

Southern Lehigh won the boys team title with 39 points, well ahead of Northwestern (92 points) and Palisades (97 points) in second and third, respectively.

Salisbury had just two girls runners at the meet. Eliza Wiener finished 64th overall and Logan Woods was 87th.

Southern Lehigh also won the girls team title by a wide margin with 32 points. Northwestern (76) was second and Notre Dame (93) was third. The Spartans placed all of their top five within the first nine places.

Northern Lehigh’s Reagan Pender won the girls individual title.