The winners of the 2017-2018 Trib Live High School Sports Network Cup Challenge recently were announced and Fox Chapel Area High School is the WPIAL Class 5A runner-up.
Rankings are determined in each WPIAL classification by a yearlong competition in which points are awarded for section and conference wins, district and state playoff wins, and district and state championships and runners-up.
Only two 5A schools won more than 200 points – Mars, the overall winner, and Fox Chapel Area.
This past school year, the Foxes’ girls’ cross country team and the tennis doubles duo of Amanda Nord and Charlotte James won their respective PIAA titles. The high school had five WPIAL champions (team and individual champs combined), 17 teams qualified for the WPIAL playoffs, and eight teams won their section championships. Five of those champions went undefeated in their sections.
“We are honored to be in this position and very proud of all of our student athletes, whether they win the big titles or not,” says Michael O’Brien, Fox Chapel Area School District athletic director. “They put in an enormous amount of time practicing to improve their skills and overall physicality. It’s often said that the characteristics of successful athletes – persistence, dedication, focus, and competitiveness – also carry through into the classroom, and that’s very true here at our school. This past year the overall winner of our annual Team QPA Award was the girls’ cross country team with a 4.1 cumulative varsity score. We’re just as proud of accomplishments such as this as we are of the ones our teams and athletes have achieved in sports.”