The cross country regular season ends this week in the Lehigh Valley Conference and Colonial League with the Freedom and Bangor boys teams closing in on dual meet titles.

This afternoon at Lehigh Parkway in Allentown, the Patriots (8-0), ranked No. 2 in The Express-Times region, can wrap up the LVC championship by beating rival and seventh-ranked Liberty (6-2) as well as winless Allen and Dieruff. If first-year coach Bob Thear's squad sweeps all three, it would be Freedom's first conference cross country title of any kind since the Pates won the 1976 East Penn Conference crown.

Bangor (23-0), ranked No. 8 in the region, can earn its second straight Colonial League title by beating Pen Argyl, Northern Lehigh and Salisbury this afternoon in Slatington.

"Salisbury is pretty good; they have some good runners at the top of their lineup," Bangor coach Andy Hartzell said. "Are we where I thought we'd be at the beginning of the season? Yes and no. I thought on paper Wilson would be the toughest team to beat, but Northwestern came on and they've had a good season, too."

Bangor's top runner is senior Wade White, one of two dual sport athletes Hartzell has in his top six. The other is freshman Evan Iplitto, who's run only two meets because of conflicts with soccer.

"Dave White, Wade's dad, is the soccer coach and we've been able to work things out pretty well," Hartzell said. "Wade has designated soccer as his primary sport, but there's been some occasions when Wade has run a meet when there was a soccer game the same day. It comes down to what team needs him more to win that and Dave has been really good about this."

Shane Reider, a junior and Bangor's No. 2 runner, is characterized as "our rock" by Hartzell because of Reider's consistency. Sophomores Charlie Sell and Brandon Tocket and senior Andy Mitchell trade off the No. 3, 4 and 5 spots.

"The way I look at it, it's not a bad thing if your No. 3, 4 and 5 runners fluctuate," Hartzell said. "What I'm looking at is how big the gap is between our No. 1 and 5 runner. It's been alternating between 60 and 80 seconds and that isn't too bad. We'd like to get it around 45 seconds for leagues and districts, though."

White is a fascinating case. He's interested in several NCAA Division II schools but some are recruiting him for soccer and others for cross country. One of those is Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which is showing interest in him as a runner.

Bangor will be the favorite to repeat at the league championship meet next Wednesday at DeSales University. The league is moving its championship meet to Wednesday after traditionally holding it on Thursdays.

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Freedom High School, Bangor Area High School boys close in on cross country championships