A bittersweet district meet for Upper Moreland's Magaha

In a season marred by illness, Upper Moreland's Drew Magaha has persevered to compete at the highest levels. Saturday in the PIAA District 1 track and field championships, the senior distance runner fought all he could before he simply had nothing left.

Plagued by a bout with mononucleosis, Magaha has lost 18 pounds over the last few months. Just last week, he was hospitalized with complications of the viral infection. Before the district meet, Magaha missed a lot of practice time and competitions because of the ailment, yet somehow he still was excelling when he did run.

Saturday afternoon, he took to the track at Coatesville and claimed his third consecutive Class AAA district title in the 1,600-meter run, smashing by 2.05 seconds his own record set last year. His time of 4 minutes, 8.94 seconds was just a second-plus off his Pennsylvania record of 4:07.32 set in last year's state meet.

"It's a great feeling, especially since I haven't been doing the mile recently," he said after the victory. ". . . It's a bit of a nostalgic feeling for the mile."

Magaha had about 90 minutes to recover before returning for the 800, the race that whet his appetite for track in middle school but had become a secondary event throughout his high school career.

In his senior year, Magaha, who will run at Penn next year, got back to the 800. It was a bit of a pet project. He put off competing in the 1600 as he sought quicker times in the half-mile.

It paid off early. On April 20 at Abington, he ran the nation's fastest time of the year - a blistering 1:48.82. That he had struggled with mono made the choice to focus on the 800 seem practical, since he would expend less energy over shorter distances.

Magaha thought the quick turnaround Saturday wouldn't affect him. He said his legs felt great. He was ready to run for his second district title of the day.

But when the gun sounded, Magaha immediately hit a wall. The tank was finally empty.

"I just couldn't get out fast enough. My legs didn't want to work," he said.

Magaha fell into last place in short order. He never dug himself out of the hole and trailed the 12-runner pack the entire way.

"It was scary. My body shut down and [it was] just complete horror," Magaha said. "You give your all and they're still just pulling away from you."

As a result, Magaha did not qualify for the race in this weekend's PIAA state championships at Shippensburg University.

He will defend his 1600-meter title there. As Magaha spoke Saturday, however, it was apparent that for the moment it was little consolation.

"Bittersweet. The mile has always been what I worked for, and three [district titles] is nothing to shake a stick at, but the [800] was kind of my special project this year, and to have it end so early is disappointing," he said.

Twice as nice. After breaking the District 1 Class AAA record in the girls' 800-meter run in Friday's preliminary heat, Gwynedd-Mercy's Emma Keenan returned Saturday for the finals and topped herself the only way possible: by breaking the record again.

In winning her third straight district crown, Keenan, a junior, won with a time of 2:08.08, shaving 0.39 seconds off her record set a day earlier.

Keenan next ventures to the PIAA championships in the hopes of defending the state title she claimed last spring.

"At Shippensburg, I definitely want to break the time that I ran today," said Keenan, who is running about four seconds faster this year than she did last season.