Freedom senior Alex Heidemann was crowned East Penn Conference Boys Cross Country Champion last Tuesday at DeSales University.

“It’s great,” Heidemann said. “I’m glad I could take it home.”

Heidemann led for most of the boys race, slowly gapping the other competitors, but it wasn’t without some slight concern on his part.

“It was a little nerve wracking. I was out a little faster than I expected to be, in 4:57. I wanted to be around 5:10, but the nerves really got me going, so the hill after the first mile punished me a little bit, and I eased it back,” he said.

Heidemann finished the race with a time of 16:51.00.

“When I saw him at a half mile in, I wasn’t sure if it was because everybody was going a little slow or he was going fast. He was maybe 10 seconds quicker than I wanted, but that’s not crazy,” said Freedom head cross country coach Bob Thear. “At two miles he was where I wanted, but without anybody pushing him in the last mile was about as good as he was gonna do.

“Times, in general, were slow today. If nobody’s pushing him it’ll be hard for him to run a super fast time. It’s much more difficult by yourself. Regardless, the goal was to try and win the race, and he did do that.”

Heidemann was the only runner to finish under 17:00 with second-place finisher Liam Davis from East Stroudsburg South crossing in 17:04.30.

“Through the hills, I’m not really sure. I never saw anybody again. I was just listening for the people cheering behind me. That’s what I was basing it off,” said Heidemann. “I never ended up looking back. Coach Bob doesn’t like that. Once I hit the third mile, once I got to the top of the hill, I let it go and let my long stride take me home.

The top 12 harriers were awarded EPC medals, including Liberty junior Emrick Leshko, who placed sixth, and senior Jacob Orrico, who placed 12th.

“I looked at the front of the race and just kept with it,” Leshko said. “My goal was to get a medal today and save the real strategy for next week. When I was running, instead of focusing on place and time, I noticed where I could go down faster and then I can go up and make adjustments (for districts).”

Leshko’s time was 17:24.10. Orrico’s time was 17:39.10.

“I tried to hit a 5:20 for the first mile split, and I came pretty close to that, so the first mile went well as far as execution goes,” Orrico said. “The hills were tough, but the hardest hills were in mile three around the cornfield. That’s when it got kind of demotivating. I try and distract myself from how I’m physically feeling and take my mind somewhere else.”

Orrico set a personal record for the DeSales course on Tuesday.

“I was happy about that,” he said.

In team results, Liberty’s boys placed third with 85 points behind Nazareth who came in first with 69 points and Parkland who came in second with 78 points.

Freedom’s boys team placed seventh with 191 points, and Bethlehem Catholic’s boys placed 13 with 371 points.

BOYS TOP 12

1. Alex Heidemann (F) 16:51.00, 2. Liam Davis (ESS) 17:04.30, 3. Liam McLaughlin (STB) 17:04.40, 4. Adam Kollgaard (NZ) 17:13.90, 5. Cameron Koch (NZ) 17:18.90, 6. Emrick Leshko (L) 17:24.10, 7. Connor Murphy (NZ) 17:27.40, 8. Ethan Strzempek (EM) 17:29.70, 9. Zeke Colyer (NP) 17:30.2, 10. Andrew Huntsberger (STB) 17:32.30, 11. Paul Abeln (PK) 17:32.80, 12. Jacob Orrico (L) 17:39.10