Consider it manifesting destiny if you will, but they did just that.

Shaner, Sherwood, Kurzawa and sophomore Patrick Stine ran a time of 8:00.38, just narrowly beating Lake Lehman’s Stephen Martin, Parker Smith,Finn Cronin and Bodhi Cronin by 0.08 seconds in a great race down the stretch. It resulted in four gold medals for the Spartans in the Class AA 3,200 relay.

“It means everything,” Kurzawa said. “We’ve been talking about this day since freshman year and three of us are seniors, we’re gone. So four years of manifestation for this and it all came through. It’s awesome.”

The Spartans’ 3,200 relay team was the area’s highest finish in Class AA competition, and lone gold medal on the day.

CHRIS MANNING/Sun-Gazette Correspondent Hughesville's Spencer Stine competes on Saturday at Shippensburg.

“I’ve been training really hard since winter with indoor track and I’ve been doing workouts with these guys to stick with them. I gave it my all,” Stine added.

The Spartans started the relay in second place after the first lap, trailing Central Clarion early. But Hughesville prefers chasing down runners ahead of them like a hawk diving for its prey. After being in second for the first three legs, it was Shaner who took the final baton handoff and tracked down Lewisburg’s final relay runner to take first.

“My main goal — from the start we preach good handoffs will win you the relay — so, that’s one of our main things is good handoffs. Patrick and I had a good handoff,” Sherwood said. “I came by and I knew I had to hand off to first or right next to first and I knew Tyce could get the job done. I have so much trust in him and that’s exactly what I did.”

“I just raced on instinct and went for it. Just straight instinct and it got the job done,” Shaner said.

Shaner ran a final split of 1:55.47 to put Hughesville into the lead.

CHRIS MANNING/Sun-Gazette Correspondent Wellsboro's 3,200 relay team runs down the stretch on Saturday at Shippensburg.

“In the rain and this weather specifically, it’s a great thing to have someone in the lead for you to break and do some of the effort for you so you have more strength in that last lap.”

Lake Lehman ran an 8:00.46 for second and Lewisburg’s team of Grayson Barner, Jack Johnson, Justin Nolt and Hugh Ikeda Shields finished in third with a time of 8:03.08. The Green Dragons were in first on the third split before Lake Lehman and Hughesville took the lead.

“I’ve been training really hard since winter with indoor track and I’ve been doing workouts with these guys to stick with them,” Stine said. “I gave it my all.”

Stine, and his teammates, definitely gave it their all throughout the relay.

Hughesville opened the relay with a split of 2:02.03 before a second split of 2:01.79. Sherwood had a split of 2:01.10 for the third leg.

CHRIS MANNING/Sun-Gazette Correspondent Hughesville's Patrick Stine competes in Hughesville's 3,200 relay. The Spartans won gold.

Sherwood started running cross country this year and he noted that he knew it would be extremely beneficial.

“I mean that’s when we really started to lock in,” Sherwood said. “This is one of our main goals from the start, that’s when we all started pushing each other a lot more. Like Pat said, we all were just fighting during work outs. It was never easy and that’s what got us to this point here.”

“It’s a blessing to be here with my favorite people to get the job done,” Shaner said of being at Shippensburg. “I’m very grateful to have great coaches and family and just a great blessing to be healthy to run with my closest people.”

The boys 3,200 relay team won gold shortly after the Spartans’ girls team did so. And seeing the girls win gold motivated the boys team to follow suit and bring home their own gold medals.

“Gender wise we push each other,” Kurzawa said. “We see the girls 4 by 8 doing insanely well so we think ‘oh, we need to do just as well.'”

CHRIS MANNING/Sun-Gazette Correspondent Hughesville's 3,200 relay team competes on Saturday in Shippensburg. The Spartans won state gold in the event.

The Spartans attributed coach Griffin Molino for being a key reason their distance team had the success they did.

“He’s such a good coach, he knows exactly how much he needs to push everybody,” Sherwood said. “He believes all of us more than we believe in ourselves sometimes. That allows all of our teams to compete as well as we do at this high level. It all comes down to him really.”

“Ever since Griffin Molino got here, the program — boys and girls on the distance side — exploded exponentially,” Shaner said.

Saturday in a steady rain at Shippensburg was a prime example of why.

The Spartans’ 400 relay team of Stine, Sam Haddo, James Smith and Carter Gormont were unable to get to the podium in the finals on Saturday due to an unfortunate false start to begin the race.

CHRIS MANNING/Sun-Gazette Correspondent Hughesville competes in the 3,200 relay on Saturday in Shippensburg.

Tyce Shaner medaled individually in the 800 on Saturday, running a 1:56.52 to finish in eighth place. He was just 0.06 seconds behind seventh-place finisher Paxton Zinz of Corry Area.

“I’m very happy to be out here competing. It’s just a thrill to compete with kids your age that love the competition. I’m happy with whatever comes from it,” Shaner said.

Shaner started the race in 17th place and ran a 58.22 split in the first 400 meters of the event, just over two seconds behind eventual champ Blake Glass of Fort LeBoeuf. He was able to gain distance however from there and climb up to the podium.

“I went out really fast and I was in the back. With one, two races under me with my legs, I was relying on some strength of the last half of the race,” Shaner said. “I went out faster than last year and I was relying on my strength to dig down to snag a medal.”

And that’s precisely what happened. And the competition helped push him. Glass ran 1:53.08 for state gold. Jonah Montagnese of Quaker valley finished with a time of 1:55.16 for silver and Pequea Valley’s Jonah Zink ran 1:55.18 for bronze.

“The competition is awesome,” Shaner said. “You couldn’t get any better. It’s fun to weave in and out of people and do the best you can do. I’m very appreciative that I could pull through and get that time.”

Spencer Stine was an eighth-place finisher for Hughesville in the 100 in 11.16 as Bethlehem-Center’s Deakyn DeHoet won gold in 10.51 and Lincoln Cook of Palisades took silver in 10.87.

Stine was part of Hughesville’s 1,600 relay team with Kaviko Faulkner, Sam Haddon and Carter Sherwood who ran a 3:30.35 for an eighth-place finish.

Warrior Run’s 1,600 relay team finished with silver medals with a time of 3:24.04, just under a second behind Catasauqua, who won in 3:23.27. That Defenders’ team was made up of Maxwell Fogelman, Braego Cieslukowski, Gideon Kennel and Ori Kennel.

“We struggled earlier in our 4 by 8, we didn’t do great, but to come back and get the silver in this is a good feeling,” Gideon Kennel said.

In the 3,200 relay, Lewisburg’s Grayson Barner, Jack Johnson, Justin Nolt and Hugh Ikeda Shields took bronze with a time of 8:03.08. Wellsboro’s Jude Cuneo, Max Macias, David Seeling and Henry Whitney ran a time of 8:13.26 to take sixth.

CHRIS MANNING/Sun-Gazette Correspondent North Penn-Mansfield competes in the Class AA 3,200 relay.

CHRIS MANNING/Sun-Gazette Correspondent The 3,200 relay is competed in at Shippensburg as Hughesville would end up winning state gold.