Borrelli helped one Mid Valley team win its third straight District 2 title and helped another advance in the district playoffs. The junior won the Class 2A boys race in a meet-best 15:57.4 as the Spartans captured their third consecutive District 2 Cross Country team title on Wednesday. Then for the soccer team, he assisted on the game-winning goal in the Spartans\u2019 3-1 victory over Western Wayne in the District 2 Class 2A quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
Family: Father, Kevin; mother, Brenda; sister, Cassidy<\/p>\n
Coaches: Vito Gentile, cross country; Todd Williams, soccer<\/p>\n
Take us through the district race: I got out feeling comfortable coming down the first hill. (Lakeland\u2019s Henry) Decker got out really hard, which had me a little confused because he doesn\u2019t normally go out that hard. But it helped me because he went out and coming up the first hill is where I started to pass him. I just wanted to get up the first hill feeling good and comfortable and just go from there. Through the first mile, I saw sub-five (minutes) and was a little shocked. I definitely knew I\u2019d be able to hold a good pace throughout the race. I was able to keep my composure throughout the second mile. I used the downhills and flats to my advantage and got up the hills when I could. As I got through the second mile, my dad was there and I heard him yell, \u201c10:20.\u201d It brought me back to a race I ran last year, Paul Short, and that race I came through two miles at 10:20 and I ended up running one of my fastest 5Ks ever. The last mile, it was time to go because the course was mostly flat and downhill from there. I just ripped it home and got the job done.<\/p>\n
How about finishing with a sub-16 time: At the two-mile mark, I knew it was definitely in the cards that sub-16 was there. I didn\u2019t know if I would get it. I knew it was going to be tight. I just kept looking forward, kept moving my legs and the time came. I\u2019m so grateful for that.<\/p>\n
What does it mean to you for the team to win a third straight district title?: That means everything to us. That was the goal coming into the race. We knew we had a good chance at bringing home a three-peat. It\u2019s just really awesome to think that we could do that and keep the program going.<\/p>\n
For soccer, describe the play on which you assisted the game-winning goal: Honestly, I don\u2019t remember much, I\u2019m not going to lie. I just remember the moment when we scored it being crazy and so surreal. When we put that second goal away, I play center defensive mid and after that happened I started to really play defensive and just try to lock it down back there. We got the job done as a team and it was such an awesome moment. To think a team that was getting blown out two years ago is in the semis now \u2026 it\u2019s just an awesome thing to be part of this team.<\/p>\n
How tough is it juggling the two sports in the same season: It\u2019s been really hard this year. It\u2019s definitely been a challenge balancing the two. I\u2019m at school about 13 hours a day between school, having cross country right after and going right to soccer. The thing that helps the most is definitely the coaches. They\u2019re so understanding about where I am and what I\u2019m doing. For cross country, my coaches know I\u2019ll get a run in if I can\u2019t make practice. My soccer coaches know I\u2019ll be getting touches when I\u2019m at a meet and can\u2019t make practice. It\u2019s definitely a ginormous help with them understanding the difficulty of balancing both sports.<\/p>\n
Other sports I play: Track and field<\/p>\n
Favorite teams: Manchester City, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Yankees<\/p>\n
Favorite food: Hot wings<\/p>\n
Cake or pie: Cake<\/p>\n
Favorite school subject: Definitely math. It\u2019s always come to me a little easier than the other subjects. I kind of see it as a puzzle, which is fun to me.<\/p>\n
Athletes you admire: Steve Prefontaine. The amount of confidence that he had, and his ability and work ethic are definitely things that have inspired me at times in my career so far as a high school athlete. I try to take all of that from him. Just everything he accomplished and how good a runner he was.<\/p>\n
If you could have any superpower, it would be: Teleportation would be pretty cool. Being able to go places without having to drive three, four hours. Then be able to pop right back home, especially when you are hungry.<\/p>\n
Superstitions: I have lucky socks that I got in eighth grade when I went to New Balance Nationals. It\u2019s just kind of been a thing I\u2019ve done since freshman year, I wear them at every big race that I run at. I also enjoy listening to music. It gets me in the zone and locked in. Metallica is a big one for me and rock music. For soccer, I\u2019ll listen to Spanish music.<\/p>\n
One word that best describes you: Outgoing. I definitely try to put myself out there a lot and just have fun wherever I go.<\/p>\n
App I use most on my phone: Instagram<\/p>\n
Three people you\u2019d like to have dinner with: I\u2019m a big Marvel fan, so I\u2019d say Robert Downey Jr., Tom Holland and Chris Hemsworth. I think that would be pretty fun.<\/p>\n
Future plans: I\u2019m still unsure what college I\u2019m going to. I want to find a spot that suits me best, the area that it\u2019s in as well as the academics and athletics. As of right now, it\u2019s looking like I\u2019m going to run cross country and track in college. I\u2019m looking to study civil engineering, maybe architectural engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Borrelli helped one Mid Valley team win its third straight District 2 title and helped another advance in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[7804,305,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-320417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-athlete-of-the-week","tag-high-school-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}