A year ago, Northwestern's Haley Yost finished second at leagues to lead the Tigers to the Colonial League cross country title.

And while Yost has graduated, the Tigers found themselves atop the mountain when all was said and done following Thursday's Colonial League Cross Country Meet at DeSales University. Things, however, looked slightly different among the top finishers.Carly Pierce finished sixth, and Molly Tarvin placed ninth out of the 89 participants, but it was the pack of Tigers just outside the top 10 that sealed a fourth consecutive league title. Rachele Cerrone came in 11th place to lead a pack of seven straight Tigers to cross the finish line before any other school."I feel if we can stay as a pack like that, there isn't too much that other teams will be able to do to break us up," Pierce said. "They've been pretty close the past few races. I never really know what is going to happen with them, but it's good to know that they can stick together like that."The Lady Tigers' ability to run together as a pack may be their biggest strength. On Thursday, eight of the top 16 finishers were from Northwestern."There were three or four Northwestern girls that started off right behind the front pack," Pierce said. "I thought that was a good place to stay, just so we wouldn't die toward the beginning, and we could pick them off towards the middle and end of race."For Pierce, she had her eyes set on a top-five finish after placing third in last year's league meet. She may have finished one spot off of that and a little more than 23 seconds off last year's time but leading the Tigers to another conference trophy was the top priority."It feels very good," Pierce said of their finish. "It feels very complete."I wish I would have been in the top five, but I'm not too upset about it. As long as I got in the top 10 I was pretty content with it."Coming off back-to-back district titles, nothing has changed in terms of expectations from the past two years."That's definitely our goal, so we can secure our place going into states," Pierce said.Southern Lehigh's Meseret Hart finished first in the girls' race with a time of 19:50.56, the only sub 20-minute finish on the day.Northern Lehigh's Gavin Kemery placed sixth in the boys' race to lead all Times News area runners. His time of 17:34.4 was more than 50 seconds faster than last season's finish, one that saw him finish 22nd."I definitely wanted to get in the top 10," Kemery said. "I was just going to do my best, and where I finished, I finished."For much of the race, Kemery was among the top five runners. He was battling with Bangor's Brandon Tockett, Moravian Academy's Sam Li and Northwestern's Brayden Heller through DeSales' hilly course. It wasn't until the final stretch that a number of those runners were able to squeak by Kemery."They had a good race," Kemery said. "I just stuck with them the whole time. At the end, we all just started finishing as we did."There were two or three that passed me at the end. It was the downhill into the finish. It was definitely within the last 200 meters."Salisbury's Kyle Gonoude won his second straight league title with a time of 16:51.44, 28 seconds better than Wilson's Joe Espinal. Saucon Valley won the team championship with five runners in the top 26.BOYSTeam and Legend1. Saucon Valley (SV) 94, 2. Bangor (B) 96, 3. Notre Dame Green Pond (NDGP) 105, 4. Pen Argyl (PA) 106, 5. Northwestern (NW) 132, 6. Northern Lehigh (NL) 162, 7. Wilson (W) 181, 8. Salisbury (S) 192, 9. Southern Lehigh (SL) 203, 10. Moravian Academy (MA) 205, 11. Palmerton (Palm) 259, 12. Palisades (Pal) 280, 13. Catasauqua (C) 369.Individual Top 101. Kyle Gonoude (S), 16:51.44; 2. Joe Espinal (W), 17:19.51; 3. Brandon Tocket (B), 17:26.06; 4. Sam Li (MA), 17:30.56; 5. Brayden Heller (NW), 17:33.44; 6. Gavin Kemery (NL), 17:34.4; 7. Charlie Sell (B), 17:41.8; 8. Zach Svetik (Palm), 17:42.53; 9. Ty Smith (PA), 17:42.94; 10. Matt McCoy (B), 17:43.39.Other Locals22. Phiip Castrine (NW), 18:42.67; 27. Carter Waibel (Palm), 18:48.97; 28. TJ Dooley (NL), 18:49.73; 31. Alec Consuelos (NW), 18:55.55; 35. Matt Pender (NL), 19:09.91; 36. Kavan Fitzpatrick (NW), 19:12.30; 38. Joshua Kromer (NW), 19:20.16; 39. Matthew Grim (NW), 19:27.54; 40. Aaron Hofmann (NL), 19:28.52; 43. Anthony Vennera (NW), 19:31.72; 51. Zachary Hancharik (NW), 19:52.38; 55. Gage Christ (NL), 20:06.4; 62. Isaiah Jones (NW), 20:33.16; 68. Tyler King (Palm), 20:39.32; 82. Brent Novitsky (NL), 21:14.59; 85. Seth Demkovitz (Palm), 21:31.87; 88. Justin Obenski (NL), 21:41.62; 89. Kyle Krempasky (NL), 21:44.25; 90. Kody Kolnik (Palm), 21:46.86; 95. Tim Maradeo (Palm), 22:20.44; 104. Jagr Andress (Palm), 23:19.32;GIRLSTeam and Legend1. Northwestern (NW) 41, 2. Southern Lehigh (SL) 59, 3. Wilson (W) 70, 4. Saucon Valley (SV) 124, 5. Notre Dame Green Pond (NDGP) 156, 6. Salisbury (S) 183, 7. Bangor (B) 188, 8. Palisades (Pal) 193, 9. Northern Lehigh (NL) 221, 10. Moravian Academy (MA) 239, 11. Catasauqua (C) 329.Individual Top 101. Meseret Hart (SL), 19:50.56; 2. Sophie Doman (Pal), 20:08.08; 3. Brianna Biondo (PA), 20:14.72; 4. Angelina Biondo (PA), 20:16.22; 5. Abby Rustay (W), 20:25.88; 6. Carly Pierce (NW), 20:30.73; 7. Kelly Gonoude (S), 20:38.75; 8. Allyson Yanega (SL), 20:44.66; 9. Molly Tarvin (NW), 20:56.56; 10. Sydney Brannon (W), 20:59.26Other Locals11. Rachele Cerrone (NW), 21:08.75; 12. Hannah Herzon (NW), 21:14.55; 13. Abigail Supplee (NW), 21:17.13; 14. Abigail Smith (NW), 21:18.62; 15. Rachel Mikols (NW), 21:21.44; 16. Angela Alden (NW), 21:24.65; 17. Paige Stitzel (NW), 21:27.59; 29. Sara Hunsicker (NL), 23:18.55; 40. Hanna Nesfeder (Palm), 23:56.42; 42. Kelly Westermann (Palm), 24:30.70; 45. Nina Schnyder (NL), 24:37.44; 53. Maddie Ligenza (NL), 24:53.59; 56. Briana Fitzpatrick (Palm), 25:03.43; 64. Rebecca Gottfried (Palm), 26:05.14; 66. Tori Csanadi (NL), 26:22.9; 74. Tiffani Traugher (NL), 27:28.69; 89. Megan Witczsak (NL), 34:43.22;