Following runner-up finishes last year in respective classifications at cross country state championship meet at Hershey Parkview, All-Americans Griffith and Pajak look to add titles to impressive resumes, before potential head-to-head matchups await at regional, national events

By Mary Albl of DyeStat

Ryan Pajak’s first memory racing Drew Griffith was in the spring of 2021.

It was the Butler High School Invitational and the two were lined up in the 3,200-meter race. Despite the warm conditions on the April day, both Pajak and Griffith, standout sophomores, decided to test their speed against Butler senior and All-American CJ Singleton.

“It was like 84 degrees and we ended up going out with CJ and we are just dying. It was bad,” Pajak said, laughing at the memory. “It was a pretty fun memory and a bad race, and we always bring that up with each other. But that was my first time meeting Drew.”

Singleton went on to win the race in 8 minutes, 57.60 seconds, with Griffith placing second (9:14.25) and Pajak finishing third (9:19.99).

Griffith and Pajak have come a long way since that day more than 30 months ago.

Griffith, a senior at Butler, and Ringgold High senior Pajak have developed into two of the best distance runners not only in the state of Pennsylvania, but the nation. They are both in the top 10 in the DyeStat individual rankings and will attend Notre Dame together next fall, where Singleton is a sophomore on the team.

After both winning district titles Saturday in almost identical times, this weekend at the PIAA State Championships held at Hershey Parkview, the two will be vying for their first cross country state titles, Griffith in Class AAA, and Pajak in Class AA.

“Sophomore year was when a rivalry kind of started to form. In our district we don’t see each other often in cross country, but in track we get to race each other a lot and it’s a friendly rivalry,” Griffith said. “I think we push each other a lot, and we try to beat each other when we’re out on the track or course, but off the course we are very friendly with each other, and I’m very excited to be teammates next year with him.”

Coincidentally, both Pajak and Griffith grew up as standout athletes in other sports, Griffith as a swimmer, and Pajak playing on the basketball team at Ringgold. By sophomore year, the two had started to blossom into national-caliber talents and saw a future path in distance running.

“I was talented at the sport (basketball), but with running I am able to push my body and mind to challenge myself,” Pajak said. “I feel like in running I have much more fun in the sport.”

For Griffith it was similar reasoning in his decision to pursue running.

“It’s one of those sports where you have to be focused every single day and it's just a lot of fun,” he said.

After solid sophomore cross country campaigns that featured Pajak winning the District 7 title and Griffith, with an impressive runner-up finish in 15:58.1 to Singleton (15:52.9) in the Class AAA state meet, the pair were able to carry that momentum over to the track.

“Drew has had improvement beyond of what I even thought,” Butler head coach Richard Davanzati said. “He came out and finished second to CJ at the state meet and has kept getting better. And I think he still has another level to go in high school, and who knows what he can do at Notre Dame.”

They finished top five at the outdoor state meet in the 3,200, running personal bests at the time, with Griffith clocking 9:04.37 and Pajak running 9:06.35. Griffith finished his season at the New Balance Nationals Outdoor running on the winning distance medley relay to earn his first All-America honor.

“You looked at him and you knew there was something special,” Ringgold coach Jennifer Lejeune said. “His progression has just been incredible. Freshman year he was impactful from the beginning. I always say, the faster you get, it’s harder to squeak out the seconds, and he just keeps progressing and progressing, and it’s been incredible to watch.”

Last fall as juniors they carved out their names as two of the state’s best in a highly competitive field that included seniors Brian DiCola (now at Penn State), Rory Lieberman (University of Pennsylvania) and junior Colin Whitaker of Lampeter-Strasburg, who is also committed to Notre Dame.

After both finishing runner-up at the state meet, competing in different classifications, Pajak and Griffith went on to race against one another at the CHAMPS Northeast Regional meet at Van Cortlandt Park in New York.

Griffith won the regional title, with Pajak qualifying for the national meet in San Diego with a seventh-place finish. In their first time at the national cross country meet, Griffith finished in eighth place (15:14.4) and Pajak took 12th in 15:22.9 to both become All-Americans.

“It definitely was my breakout point,” Pajak said of his junior cross country season. “I was really nervous going into the regional meet, and I did not expect top 10, and I was so happy to get that seventh place. That season really was the breakout point to where I’m at right now, and I worked very hard for it.”

Both Lejeune and Davanzati rattle off the words “smart,” “driven” and “leader,” when describing their best distance runners they’ve ever coached. They also emphasize the word “confident.”

“Junior year was just absolutely key for Ryan,” Lejeune said. “The confidence, he was always confident, but I think that past year, it just opened his eyes to, ‘I can be and do whatever I want to do, I just have to continue to grind it out and put in the work.’”

For Pajak, his junior track season finished with an historic runner-up finish at state in the boys Class AAA 3,200, clocking 8:48.20 and going under the state record. DiCola won in 8:47.39, with Griffith taking third in 8:52.20.

In the 1,600, Griffith was second (4:08.59), with Pajak finishing third (4:10.64). Pajak ran at the New Balance Nationals Outdoor meet finishing in a PR of 4:09.73.

Griffith also competed at the New Balance National Outdoor Championships in June where he broke the 2-mile state record in 8:52.74 to finish in sixth place.

“He has this confidence and he just goes out and performs when it counts,” Davanzati said of Griffith. “I haven’t really seen what most people would call a bad race from him, he’s just very consistent.”

That has carried over to this fall where both runners have not lost a race yet.

Griffith broke the state 5-kilometer cross country record Oct. 14 at the MileStat Invitational in Virginia, when he ran a fast and calculated race of 14:21.0. His time also broke the course record.

At the District 7 meet Oct. 26, Pajak broke the course record at White Oak Park, winning Class 2A in 15:04.0.

“I think Ryan respects Drew and Drew respects Ryan,” Lejeune said. “And I know they don’t get to see each other often because we are in different classifications, but I think they welcome when they do see each other, because as you know, that’s who you need to run against to draw out the potential greatness.”

Pajak said a focus for this season has been working on his finishing speed, something he hopes will power him to his first state title and a repeat trip to nationals. For Griffith, he also has his eyes on a state crown in his final high school cross country race in Pennsylvania.

“I definitely am looking forward to the state meet a lot,” Griffith said. “This meet means a lot as it was an eye-opener of, ‘Hey, I'm actually pretty good at this.’ I’m just really looking forward to getting a shot at that meet one last time this year.”

While the focus for Griffith and Pajak is the present, and the potential of squaring off against one another this fall and spring, the thoughts of running together next year full-time as teammates is something they are looking forward to.

“Drew is a really insane runner,” Pajak said. “It should be fun at Notre Dame and I’m really looking forward to it. (Notre Dame) are going to push me to my best level and they are great people as well. I wouldn’t want to have it any other way.”