About a mile into the girls' Class AA race at the WPIAL cross country championships last Thursday, it looked as though it was going to be a two-person race as Shady Side Academy's Katrina Jueng and Tory Bruch appeared comfortable in leading the field.

Quaker Valley sophomore Sarah Miller was in the second group along with Freedom's Julia Kubica, Freeport's Kayla Zboran and South Side Beaver's Rachel Hilliard. At that point no one at Cooper's lake Campground, except maybe Quaker Valley coach Dave Noyes, thought Miller would be the first to cross the finish line.

But as Miller maintained her race pace of 6 minutes and 30 seconds per mile, she kept getting closer to the leaders.

"At one point I just thought 'I could do this,' because [Jueng] kept getting closer," Miller said. "Once I passed her, I was not going to let her come back and beat me. It was over if I got past her."

Which is what Miller did and what happened.

Miller pushed by a fading Jueng with less than a mile to go, didn't back off her pace and cruised to victory on the 3.1-mile course. She finished in 19:30, five seconds ahead of Zboran who put on a sprint to catch Jueng, the defending champion, just before the finish. Jueng was third with Kubica fourth and Bruch fifth.

"For a while I thought I would get fourth or fifth place," Miller said. "Then with about three-quarters of a mile to go my coach yelled, 'You are in this ... you can do this.'

"The whole week [before the race] I was like, 'You can do this. You have a chance.' I actually thought I'd get into the top five and I'd be happy with that ... maybe the top three. And then I get first."

Noyes said Miller picked the perfect day to run the perfect race. He knew she was more than capable of running a 6:20 pace and that would give her a finishing time around 19:30. He also knew that a 19:30 would give her a shot at the title.

"Sometime you put a play together that plays out perfectly," Noyes said. "That's exactly what happened. Both her and Sarah McKendry [who finished 13th] did exactly what we wanted them to do and Sarah [Miller] pulled it out.

"She ran great and it has been a while since we had somebody finish first."

Julie Dickhans was the previous Quaker valley runner to take a WPIAL title, winning in 2003. Before her, Maxine Markfield won three consecutive crowns 2000-02 for the Quakers.

What's interesting about Miller's victory, other than the fact she wore a tiara and lei after the race, is that she doesn't run track in the spring. She plays lacrosse and spends the winter on the school's swimming team.

"I hated track when I was in middle school," she said. "I played soccer all my life, but when I got to high school my brother said 'Don't do soccer, it's a pain. Cross country is amazing, you should try it."

Last year was her first season of cross country and she enjoyed running the longer distance, which makes sense because she had won her age group championship in the 10K part of the Great Race.

"It's about the most challenging sport ever," she said. "It's about being competitive. It's about which ever runner can handle the pain the best wins."

If that's true, Quaker Valley has seven girls who handle the pain well. The Quakers won the team title as well, topping defending champion Shady Side Academy, 85-225.

The time spread between Miller and Allie Rakowski, the team's seventh finisher, was 2:25. But the difference between Miller and Casey Lally, who placed 32nd, was just 47 seconds.

After McKendry, freshman Rachel Skolnekovich was 14th and senior Marielle Roppo was 25th. Freshman Lauren Ferris was 43rd.

"We had beaten Shady Side in a couple of meets during the season so I felt good about our chances," Noyes said. "Besides, we had finished second three years in a row and the seniors on this team didn't want to be the ones to go through without winning a title."

As for the Quaker Valley boys' team, it did what was expected even though not all of the Quakers' runners finished as high. Quaker Valley had 41 points compared to Beaver's 199.

The victory was star-crossed because Quaker Valley didn't come up with the individual champion. Omar Hyjek, the defending champion for the Quakers, came down with a side stitch in the final mile and faded to 16th place. John Yankello finished second behind Laurel's Evan Miller, who ran an outstanding race. Nat Fox was sixth and Andrew Hotchkiss placed 14th with L.J. Westwood 17th and Jack McGarry 24th.

• The PIAA cross country championships are Saturday at the Parkview course next to the Giant Center in Hershey. Race times are 9 a.m., Class AA girls; 10 a.m. Class AAA girls,; 11 a.m., Class AA boys; noon, Class AAA boys.

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