Cam Stauffer and Chris Cipro placed 11th and 19th overall, respectively, to lead the Seneca Valley boys cross country team to a fourth-place finish at the PIAA Class AAA Cross Country Championships Saturday at Hershey.

In those fielding teams that qualified, the duo crossed the line fourth and seventh overall to lead the way. Stauffer was clocked at 16:21 and Cipro at 16:31.

Runners placing in the top 25 overall earn state medalist honors.

"The kids did a great job and I'm very proud of them," said Raiders' coach Jim Nagle. "We talked about possibly being in the top five when we had our May meeting, but didn't know how things would go over the summer. You never know what to expect."

The Raiders finished second at the WPIALmeet the past two years and were eighth at the state meet last year.

Said Nagle, "We only had two goals going into the season and it's always the same — do well at the WPIAL meet so you can go to the state meet, then go there and do as well as you can there. That's the only two goals we set."

Rounding out the Raiders' squad were Andrew Razanauskas (78th, 17:05), Matt Davis (101st, 17:12), Eric Geddis (112th, 17:20), Alex Mascio (191st, 17:56) and Mike Sibenac (221st, 18:17).

Also in the Class AAA race, Butler's Ben Porter was 63rd with a time of 16:59 and Wayne Dailey was 156th (17:41).

In the boys Class AA race, Nate King of Slippery Rock was 11th with a time of 17:04 and Jacob Kildoo of Grove City was 17th with a time of 17:10.

"Nate had his breakout race at just the right time," said Rockets coach Tony Consbruck. "This was something I'd seen in Nate since the first time I started working with him.

"He finally got focused and not worrying about things. I'm surprised but not shocked,"Consbruck added.

Also, King's teammate, Owen Bowser of Slippery Rock, was 47th (17:35) and Grove City's Tom Bollinger was 78th (17:49).

Karns City representatives, Aaron McGarvey (64th, 17:41) and Chris Harmon (129th, 18:11), also had strong performances while the Mars boys placed 17th overall, led by Justin Stadelmyer (98th, 17:59), Nick Edinger (139th, 18:15) and Michael Lewis (165th, 18:29).

Brandon Stadelmyer (18:47), Chris Hardt (19:05) and Randza (19:20) and Chris Alikhani (19:22) rounded out the Planets' team.

In the Class AAA girls race, Knoch's Jolene Kunkel became the first runner in the program's history to earn a state medal by placing 22nd overall with a time of 19:28.

Seneca Valley's Megan Powell also placed high, clocking in at 19:48 for a 36th-place showing.

In the Class AA girls race, Grove City's Megan DeGraaf was 56th with a time of 20:37 while teammate Becky Consbruck was 159th (21:43).

<B>North Allegheny 3, Seneca Valley 2 — </B>At the WPIALClass AAA third-place consolation match, the Tigers came away with a 20-25, 25-18, 25-19, 15-25, 15-11 victory Saturday at Chartiers Valley to clinch a PIAA playoff berth.Seneca Valley had defeated North Allegheny twice this season and won the section title while the Tigers were second.

<B>Butler 6, Gateway 1 — </B>Beau Bechtel's natural hat trick in the first period led the Tornado (2-2) to the win in this game from Friday.R.C. Double scored twice while Zach Pennington scored and added an assist and Dave Wolfe added two helpers for Butler, which hosts Seneca Valley at The Ice Connection tonight.