Mirror photo by Michael Boytim Penn Cambria’s Josh Stolarski leans in to the finish line to win the Class 2A 200-meter dash on Saturday.

SHIPPENSBURG — Penn Cambria’s Josh Stolarski made history last year as a junior when he became the first male athlete to win a PIAA championship in any sport at the school, but rather than rest on those laurels, he decided that he wanted to stake his claim at being the best to ever compete in the Panthers black and blue.

In his words, he accomplished that Saturday at the PIAA Class 2A track and field championships at Shippensburg University’s Seth Grove Stadium.

Stolarski repeated as the 400-meter dash state champion with a National Federation of State High School Associations honor roll time and new personal best of 47.1 seconds and then edged Meyersdale sprinter Tristin Ohler, who had beaten Stolarski earlier in the season, for the 200-meter dash PIAA title in 21.98 seconds.

“Nobody from Penn Cambria is ever going to do what I did,” Stolarski said. “I know that for a fact. Nobody is as driven as I am from Penn Cambria. We have good sports. We have a good football team, semi-good basketball and baseball teams, but when it comes to the top-dog athlete there, it’s always going to be me. Nobody my caliber will come out of Penn Cambria ever again.”

Stolarski’s time in the 400 was nearly two full seconds better than his championship time of 49.09 last year.

“I went from 49.1 to 47.1, and two full seconds is a lot in track,” Stolarski said. “That’s almost equivalent to 20 meters, but I think I matured more as a person than an athlete. I figured out what I wanted, what I wanted to do and how I’m going to do things. I figured out the type of person I want to be, and that’s what pushed me to be great here today.”

Bishop McCort’s Shakille Ferguson was second in 48.98, meaning Stolarski has been racing against the state’s best all year in Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference meets and in District 6 competition.

“When we first faced each other this season, he came out of the woods and scared me,” Stolarski said. “I thought he was going to give me some good competition, and he turned into one of those guys.”

But Stolarski measures himself on a scale larger than just the state of Pennsylvania.

“I really wanted 46.99, but I’ll take 47.1,” Stolarski said. “That makes the top-U.S. 50 list, and that’s what I wanted at the beginning of this year. To have my name up there with the big dogs, that feels pretty important.”

Stolarski credits his mother, Marianne Stolarski, as the most influential person in his life and sports career.

“He wants to be the best,” Marianne Stolarski said. “Since he was a little boy, he’s wanted to go to the Olympics. People laugh at that, and it’s a joke to some people, but it’s true. That’s his dream. Today when he came off the track, he was hugging me, and he said, ‘I’m No. 50 in the nation,’ and that’s what he strives toward.”

Stolarski’s day was far from over when he won the 400. He made a quick trip out to see Marianne and draped his gold medal around her neck for safe keeping while he went back onto the track in search of another one.

Stolarski came into the 200 seeded third, and the race was close throughout until Stolarski got the edge down the final few meters and lunged across the finish line ahead of Ohler.

“I think he just had more off the go,” Ohler said. “That’s pretty much all it was. He had more juice left in him, and that’s what it came down to at the end.”

The race avenged an earlier setback at the Northern Bedford Invitational against the Meyersdale star, who had won a bronze medal in the 100-meter dash earlier in the day, and finished the 200 in 22.1 seconds. Everett’s Maylin Gunby was fifth in 22.7.

“At Northern Bedford, I was injured,” Stolarski said. “I ran my 400 PR that day running 48.58 and then during my warmups, my left leg didn’t feel quite right, and that 200 around the bend, my leg gave out on me and I pulled up. It was probably my worst 200 of the season, 22.9. But Tristin is a good competitor and a good kid. When he ran 22.0 in prelims yesterday, I knew he was going to give me some trouble, and he did, but to be able to come away with this was important to me to end my senior year on a high note.”

Stolarski’s extra “juice” as Ohler put it, may have come from a higher power.

“I prayed to God,” Stolarski said. “I asked Him to fill my legs with the strength to get across the finish line, and if it was in His will to have me win, it was going to happen. Obviously it was, or I wouldn’t be wearing the gold medal right now.”

Thoughts of his family and friends celebrating the win with him also fueled Stolarski.

“I could see the looks on my friends’ faces and what my family would tell me after I won the race if I were to come away with it,” Stolarski said. “That’s what put the air under me and gave me that extra drive to get to that line just that much faster.”

Stolarski’s two gold medals, along with Carter McDermott’s fourth-place finish in the long jump, gave Penn Cambria 25 team points, good enough for second in the state behind only Slippery Rock’s 41.

Stolarski broke meet records in both the 200- and 400-meter dashes at the District 6 meet last week but saved his best performances for the last of his high school career.

“I was crazy nervous,” Marianne Stolarski said. “Sometimes you peak and then you go down, and that’s what I was worried about. Districts, I thought, was it. For him to get better times than at districts is amazing.”

Stolarski spends all year training, which included attending the New Balance Indoor Nationals in Boston this past March and being part of the Junior Olympics for the past 10 years.

“He’s been working so very hard,” Marianne Stolarski said. “We live in Loretto. He goes to Saint Francis’ track and drives his car down there with his weight sled and does it in the snow. He has starting blocks, and he goes down and does starts at night in the dark. He works very hard, and he deserves everything that he’s getting right now.”

The final thing Stolarski is hoping to achieve out of his work over his high school career is a window into the next stage, hopefully at the collegiate level.

“I want to go run D1,” Stolarski said. “I have a couple of visits lined up right after this meet. On Thursday, I’m going to visit Penn State, and we’ll go from there. The goal is to run in college, and five or six years down the line, I want to be competing for a professional team.”