Freedom and Liberty’s boys cross country teams expected a close race in team scores and individual competition in the last meet of the regular season, which was run on Oct. 7 at Easton Area High School.

“We knew it was going to be a tough match between (Liberty’s) Josh [Cazares] and (Freedom’s) Brayden [Boyle],” said Liberty head coach Joseph Spang. “Brayden looks more like his normal form, and Josh ran a great race. We hoped Josh could beat Brayden in terms of the point scoring, but we knew there was a decent chance that wouldn’t happen, so the rest of our strategy, we knew the meet was going to come down to our fourth, fifth, sixth runners.”

Easton’s Evan Guydish clinched first place in 16:41, and Nazareth’s Jacob Casey placed second in 16:59, while Cazares and Boyle battled it out for third place.

“[Josh] had a pretty good gap on me, and then that last half mile I felt really, really good, and I turned it on,” Boyle said. “Actually, going into the last quarter mile, I was in front of him and then I dropped it back because it’s one of my first races and I didn’t know what I was gonna do, so I hung on him and then sprinted.”

Boyle took third place in 17:21, and Cazares was fourth in 17:23.

Freedom’s Webb Kurtz came in 14th with a time of 18:26.

Liberty’s Logan Malozi was 22nd in 19:06, and Riley Kutz placed 24th in 19:08, also for Liberty.

“Either way, we’re really happy with the kids because they had a really busy week last week with a dual meet, and then many of our runners ran at Paul Short at Lehigh,” said Coach Spang. “I was impressed, no matter how the scoring came up.”

Freedom’s Nick DeVito placed 25th in 19:11, and Bethlehem Catholic’s Matthew Amrick was 38th with a time of 20:04.

Liberty’s boys topped Freedom in team scores.

The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Cross Country Meet is scheduled for this week at DeSales University.