Patacca is second; Claymont misses the IVC runner-up spot by a point
Nolan Patacca finished second individually, and Claymont finished one point from second as a team, in Saturday’s Inter-Valley Conference boys championship at Sandy Valley.
Sandy Valley’s Gleason Pfeffer won the October 17 5K in 16:50.15. Indian Valley’s Patacca followed in 17:11.86, 21.71 seconds behind the winner and 7.55 seconds ahead of East Canton’s Michael Crissman. Patacca had won Indian Valley’s home race a week earlier; this time the Braves senior faced a conference field of 60 finishers.
Tuscarawas Valley won the team race with 35 points. Cade Conrad, Logan Roth and Mason Tidrick finished fourth through sixth, and the Trojans put all five scorers among the first thirteen. East Canton held second with 74, just ahead of Claymont’s 75.
Freshman Kason Bazzoli led Claymont in seventh at 17:45.87, with Braxtyn Myers sixteenth in 18:40.72. Sandy Valley finished fourth with 87, followed by Indian Valley at 132, Malvern at 144 and Newcomerstown at 161.
Indian Valley’s Mason Curran placed ninth in 18:09.58. Garaway’s Dominic Schlabach was eleventh in 18:23.22, while Newcomerstown freshman Bryson Eckelberry finished twenty-first in 19:09.07. Each heads toward Cambridge next week, with Garaway and Newcomerstown in Division IV and Claymont and Indian Valley in Division III.
Buckeye Trail’s Carter Johnson finished nineteenth in a season-best 19:02.39. John Long ran a season-best 19:45.59 for twenty-sixth, followed by Trent Jeane in 21:07.45 and Will Hickman in 33:35.87. Johnson’s new time brings him inside the opening district mock’s additional-individual group; the final district finish will decide the route.
The current Division IV boys team forecast has a particularly close fourth-place race. Malvern leads Newcomerstown by two model points, reversing their order from last week’s opening mock. Their actual IVC meeting favored Malvern 144–161, but the district lineup and the runners from other schools will change the scoring next Saturday.
Full IVC boys results · Original team scores · Six district mock races