Mady McCartney doesn’t need other runners to push her.

She runs at her own pace, which is nearly always the fastest on the course.

Last week was no different when the Emmaus senior won her third straight East Penn Conference cross country championship, finishing the race in 18:11.3 last Tuesday at DeSales University.

She finished 49 seconds in front of Freedom’s Hannah Brodhead.

“I just keep going, keep pushing,” she said. “I’m glancing at my watch every few seconds to see where I’m at pace-wise. If I’m not where I’m meant to be I’ve got to pick it up harder.”

McCartney heads to next week’s District 11 Championships looking for her third straight district title. It will mark the last cross country race she runs as a Hornet in the Lehigh Valley.

“It’s sad because it’s almost over,” she said. “But at the same time I’m really excited. I always look forward to these meets.”

“What a journey,” said Emmaus head coach Kami Reinhard. “How could it be anything but wonderful for a coach to be part of it? She’s just really proud of herself.”

During her senior year, McCartney achieved some things she had on her to-do list for quite some time.

She broke a 17-year old school record a few weeks ago when she ran a race in 17:35. That time shattered the mark of 17:57 set by Lindsey Graybill in 2008.

Graybill’s record time was displayed on a board in the EHS Sports Center. McCartney noticed it as a young runner.

“Ever since I was in middle school I looked at it and was like ‘I’ve got to try my hardest and see what I can do,’” McCartney said. “I’ve worked very hard for it and seeing it pay off really makes me happy.”

McCartney also recently committed to run at the University of Kentucky for the next four years.

“I’m very excited,” she said. “I’m going to miss Emmaus a lot but I’m very excited to be a Wildcat.”

McCartney led a young Emmaus team to a third-place finish at leagues. Junior Grace Nosal finished 15th overall, followed by senior Olivia Fleck in 16th. Junior Isabella Alwine-Balliro (18th) and freshman Nitzana Jamaica Romero (35th) rounded out the Hornets’ top five.

Myla Felegy (38th), Aubrey Kazmierczak (39th), Julie Murphy-Peterson (44th), Samantha Reidnauer (46th) and Amanda Gulliver (60th) also competed in the girls race, which had 104 finishers.

Emmaus sophomore Roen Woolf led the Hornet boys team with a second-place overall finish in 16:44.40.

In his first season as a high school cross country runner, Woolf emerged as one of the top runners in the league as he finished 17 seconds behind winner Colin McGuigan (16:27.30) of Parkland.

“I feel like I could have attacked the second mile better,” Woolf said. “But feel like I held off Will [Haring] from Central Catholic well. He had a good race.”

Woolf finished six seconds ahead Haring (16:50.4) to secure the runner-up spot.

“Sub-17 for this meet was the goal,” Woolf said. “I got that pretty well. I wanted to stick with first place for the whole race but I got kind of surprised when he took it out really, really quickly.”

During most of the regular season Woolf was among the Hornets’ top three runners. When he led the team and finished 33rd in 16:10 at the recent Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh University, Woolf realized he could compete with the top runners in the area.

“That gave me a really big boost of momentum coming into this meet,” he said “My initial goal for this season was 16:30. When I hit 20 seconds under that it gave me a huge shot of confidence for the rest of the season.”

Reinhard has seen Woolf’s discipline, focus and work ethic and was not surprised by his performance last week.

“He set goals and he’s a kid that he will push,” she said. “He has the grit to use what he’s done and visualize his race.”

The Hornets took second place as at team at leagues, with senior Ryan Fach placing third overall and sophomore David Hearn finishing 10th. Sophomore Michael Carwell (13th) and freshman Luke Harris (17th) rounded out the Hornets’ top five.

Matthew Sirignano (18th), Zachary Zappile (19th), Sullivan Hochbein (24th), Mason Hipp (27th) and Calvin Schucker (43rd) were also part of the Emmaus boys team at the league meet.

Parkland won the boys meet with 36 points. Emmaus finished with 46. Central Catholic (97) was third, followed by Nazareth (114) and Easton (143).

Easton won the girls team title with 59 points. Parkland (80) was second, followed by Emmaus (83), Liberty (98) and Nazareth (124).

The District 11 Championships are scheduled for Wednesday back at DeSales.