Moon's Mia Cochran concludes illustrious high school cross country career with PIAA gold

Parth Upadhyaya, Beaver County Times

November 10, 2021 at 10:30 PM·4 min read

Moon Area's Mia Cochran crosses the finish line to win the Class 3A girls' race during the PIAA cross country championships, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, in Hershey. The senior ran a 18:08.5.

The ending of this one was inevitable. That didn’t make the finish any less storybook-esque, though.

In the final girls race of the PIAA Cross Country Championships in Hershey on Saturday, it was, again, Mia Cochran who crossed the finish line first. Cochran, a Moon Area High School senior, finished with a time of 18:08 to win the PIAA Class 3A title. The victory marked her third consecutive state championship and came just nine days after she completed the three-peat in the WPIAL championships at California University of Pennsylvania.

This was the conclusion she’d envisioned all along.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to horribly challenge me in the state of Pennsylvania,” Cochran said after her season-opening victory at the Red, White & Blue Classic in September.

Well, she was right. Even Saturday, among the best competition in the state, there was a 13 second gap between her and second-place finisher Logan St. John Kletter (18:21) of Mt. Lebanon. It really wasn’t all that close. And it hadn’t been all year.

After Cochran took home WPIAL gold last week, head coach Tim Hrivnak wouldn’t get into whether or not his star runner should be in the discussion as one of the greatest distance runners of all time in Pennsylvania. Hrivnak said that was a topic “for other people to debate” and Cochran just had to “go out there and continue to work the way she has.” But, now that it’s all said and done, it’s easy to see the conversation is one worth having.

The recent Arkansas commit headlined the event and was the only Beaver Valley runner to compete in the girls Class 3A race, but there were other impressive performances from local athletes on Saturday.

Here’s how runners from the Beaver County Times’ coverage area fared at the PIAA championships:

CLASS 3A

BOYS INDIVIDUAL FINISHES

Moon Area:

Jacob Puhalla (junior) - 17:33 (102nd out of 239 runners)

Class 2A

GIRLS TEAM FINISHES

Beaver Area, 231 points (7th out of 21 teams)

GIRLS INDIVIDUAL FINISHES

Beaver Area:

Ella Andrew (junior) - 20:37 (36th out of 252 runners)
Danica Purtell (freshman) - 20:49 (47th out of 252 runners)
Rylie Teapole (freshman) - 22:08 (130th out of 252 runners)
Isabella Meadows (sophomore) - 22:21 (149th out of 252 runners)
Allison Tate (sophomore) - 22:29 (160th out of 252 runners)
Makenzie Springer (freshman) - 22:29 (161st out of 252 runners)
Constantina Krzeczowski (junior) - 22:40 (165th out of 142 runners)

Quaker Valley:

Anna Cohen (senior) - 20:08 (21st out of 252 runners)
Cecilia Montagnese (freshman) - 22:28 (159th out of 252 runners)

Blackhawk:

Talia Peccon (senior) - 21:02 (61st out of 142 runners)

BOYS TEAM FINISHES

Blackhawk, 265 points (11th out of 19 teams)

BOYS INDIVIDUAL FINISHES

Blackhawk:

Ethan Papa (junior) - 17:23 (39th out of 236 runners)
Aidan Thellman (junior) - 17:49 (71st out of 236 runners)
Alec Jerome (sophomore) - 18:22 (130th out of 236 runners)
Travis Gross (senior) - 18:28 (141st out of 236 runners)
Chase Bowen (sophomore) - 18:32 (154th out of 236 runners)
Terrance Laster (junior) - 20:04 (223rd out of 236 runners)
David Yowler (sophomore) - 20:04 (224th out of 236 runners)

Hopewell:

Dominic Flitcraft (junior) - 17:09 (25th out of 236 runners)

Quaker Valley:

Matthew Otto (sophomore) - 17:49 (70th out of 236 runners)

Beaver Area:

Ryan Groff (freshman) - 18:01 (95th out of 236 runners)

Class 1A

GIRLS TEAM FINISHES

Our Lady of Sacred Heart (OLSH), 187 points (5th out of 23 teams)

GIRLS INDIVIDUAL FINISHES

OLSH:

Audrey Wrabley (senior) - 21:27 (41st out of 251 runners)
Abby Wertz (junior) - 21:54 (64th out of 251 runners)
Malley Aiello (senior) - 22:29 (91st out of 251 runners)
Faith Gartley (sophomore) - 22:39 (106th out of 251 runners)
Margaret Sweeney (freshman) - 22:40 (109th out of 251 runners)
Gianna Mosca (freshman) - 22:41 (113th out of 251 runners)
Kyleigh Nagy (junior) - 24:13 (177th out of 251 runners)

Riverside:

Lexi Fluharty (sophomore) - 21:43 (58th out of 251 runners)
Brooke Wissinger (sophomore) - 21:55 (66th out of 251 runners)

BOYS TEAM FINISHES

Our Lady of Sacred Heart (OLSH), 342 points (11th out of 22 teams)

BOYS INDIVIDUAL FINISHES

OLSH:

Maxwell Hamilton (junior) - 17:55 (31st out of 259 runners)
Peter Sweeney (junior) - 18:47 (118th out of 259 runners)
Will Stickman (sophomore) - 18:59 (139th out of 259 runners)
Ryan Kozy (senior) - 19:07 (151st out of 259 runners)
Michael Urban (senior) - 19:51 (203rd out of 259 runners)
Alexander Maletestinic (freshman) - 29:01 (259th out of 259 runners)

Riverside:

Ty Fluharty (senior) - 16:39 (2nd out of 259 runners)

South Side:

R.J. Ashcroft (sophomore) - 18:34 (90th out of 259 runners)

New Brighton:

Maddox Mengel (senior) - 18:54 (130th out of 259 runners)

Ellwood City:

Colton Crizer (sophomore) - 18:43 (107th out of 259 runners
Joel Brooks (senior) - 18:57 (133rd out of 259 runners)

Contact Parth Upadhyaya at pupadhyaya@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @pupadhyaya_.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Moon's Cochran ends high school cross country career with PIAA gold

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CLASS 3A

Class 2A

Class 1A

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