South Fayette sophomore Angela Teng pulled away from the pack early and breezed to the WPIAL Class 3A girls cross country title Thursday at White Oak Park, shocking the field.

“My plan was to stay with the pack and just make my move and trust my gut,” Zeng said. “When my gut told me to go, I would go. That happened to be pretty early on back in the woods.

“I decided to go and do not look back. So that was my plan.”

Zeng quickly put distance between herself and Norwin’s Annie Czajkowski and steadily pulled away.

Zeng said she did not think she would be the underdog.

“I believe in myself,” Zeng said. “I am happy that the team will be joining me in Hershey.”

Gateway sophomore Piper Munyon was second.

“I surprised myself by finishing second,” Munyon said. “I actually got good rest the past couple of nights. I have been tapering down at the end of the season. It helped knowing I could do it.”

The Norwin girls won their first team title since 2009 with an impressive victory as a team with 36 points, outscoring PIAA qualifiers Fox Chapel (93) and South Fayette (108).

The Knights had five finishers in the top 14 overall and six in the top 23.

Junior Emily Dansak led the way with a third-place finish. Senior Annie Czajkowski followed in fifth while junior Jillian Ryba was sixth, junior Addison Farrah was 13 and junior Anna Dansak was 14.

“The team just kept getting better throughout the season,” Emily Dansak said. “We knew if we all did our best, she would win. I could tell early on the Annie was not herself, but the team picked up the slack.”

Class 3A boys

It had been 30 years since a Norwin boys runner claimed a WPIAL cross country title.

Justin Gaydos captured the Class 3A title in 1995.

Sophomore Ben McBride ended the drought Thursday at White Oak with a top time of 15:27.80 to claim the gold medal.

He moved up from 26th last year as a freshman and dropped more than a minute from his 2024 time.

“I had been thinking about this race since last year,” McBride said. “I knew I had a shot at winning it, and to go do it today in that fashion is just insane to think about. I am so excited. I am just so proud of the whole team. (Sophomore) Alex Barrett was injured the entire season, and he only ran one race. But he came back and ran a 16:01, which is awesome. It was just a total team effort.”

Barrett, Norwin’s second runner, placed 11th as the Knights landed in third in the team standings and claimed one of the WPIAL’s three PIAA berths in Class 3A boys. Norwin came in as the defending WPIAL team champion.

That honor this year goes to Hempfield, which won its first team title with 67 points, 12 ahead of runner-up North Allegheny and 41 in front of Norwin.

Senior Jonathan Stetchok led the Spartans as the runner-up to McBride in a time of 15:37.50.

All five of Hempfield’s scoring runners placed 25th or better.

“It’s an incredible feeling,” Stetchock said. “We’ve been looking at this for four years. It’s amazing that we finally accomplished it. It was a dream come true.”