Race brings former Cathedral Prep football champs together. This trio complete Boston Marathon

Monday in Boston was the latest mini-reunion for three members of Cathedral Prep’s 2012 football team that won that year’s PIAA Class 3A tournament.

Up until then, Damion Terry, Joe Hampy and James Trucilla would reminisce while they watched some sort of athletic event, either on television or in person.

Not this time.

Instead of the Boston Red Sox in action at Fenway Park, the trio ran past that famed venue.

Terry, Hampy and Trucilla initially found themselves in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, for the start of the 127th Boston Marathon. Each trained for months in their bids to complete such a race for the first time.

Each accomplished that despite miserable weather conditions throughout the 26.2-mile course.

Hampy, 28, was the swiftest of the three. The former defensive lineman, who helped the Ramblers beat Archbishop Wood 24-14 in the 2012 3A championship game, was timed at 4 hours, 3 minutes, 24 seconds when he crossed the Boylston Street finish line in downtown Boston.

Trucilla, 26, followed at 4:52.21 and Terry, 27, at 5:49.16.

Terry passed runners, not footballs

Terry was the starting quarterback for Prep’s state title team from 11 years ago. He was recruited by Michigan State and was a reserve for the Spartans.

Terry, who recently accepted a job with Boston Beer Company’s Pittsburgh branch, said training and finishing Monday’s race was the hardest thing he's ever accomplished.

It also ranked among the greatest, according to the 2013 Prep graduate.

“I loved everything about it,” Terry said. “I stayed with Joe and James (at their apartment). I got here Friday, but we kept waking up in the middle of the night because we were all ready to hear that (starter’s) siren.”

Boston Beer Company, with Sam Adams as its flagship brand, traditionally offers 20 of its employees the opportunity to formally train and enter the marathon.

Terry learned last winter he was one of those 20 for the 2023 race.

“I like to think I’m still an athlete,” he said, “and knowing that Joe and James were running (Monday), I wanted in even more. Although I’m no long-distance runner, it was exciting when I won that bid.”

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Hampy helped others

Hampy, also a 2013 Prep graduate, recently began work as a recruiter for Compass Real Estate. He moved to Boston four years ago and has shared an apartment with Trucilla for the past two.

The Boston Athletic Association, the marathon’s host since it started in 1897, often favors runners who are involved in fundraisers when it chooses potential participants.

That’s largely how Hampy was selected to make his Boston debut. He ran for Project HOPE, a global health and humanitarian relief organization.

Hampy plans to enter some shorter races in the coming months. However, thanks to Monday’s effort, he could one day see himself running a marathon in less than 4 hours.

Having Terry and Trucilla actively pushing him would be that much better.

“They’ve been able to uplift me and vise versa,” Hampy said. “I wouldn’t have made it to that finish line without them.”

Like father, like son

Trucilla, a 2015 Prep graduate, was another notable lineman for the Ramblers’ 2012 PIAA title team. Like Hampy, he also was good enough to receive Division I football offers.

Virginia successfully recruited Trucilla, who now works as a sales engineer for Alteryx, a computer software company.

Not only did Trucilla run as part of a fundraiser, but a popular one for many of the estimated 500,000 spectators who watched the race. He ran for the Red Sox Foundation, the franchise’s official charity arm.

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Lilly Burchell, Trucilla’s girlfriend, got him interested in running. Entering a marathon, Boston or otherwise, wasn’t as far-fetched as it sounded after his times and experiences in some shorter races.

A time similar to Hampy’s was what Trucilla had in mind at the starting line.

Then, the race began.

“I finally got to the point of ‘Let’s just get to the finish line,’” Trucilla said. “The first marathon will always be the hardest and, no matter how hard you train for it, you can’t comprehend it until you’re actually doing it.”

“The training we did, though, definitely got us through this one.”

When Trucilla crossed the finish line, he joined his father as an official Boston Marathon participant. John Trucilla, a judge on the Erie County Court of Common Pleas, ran it in 2007 and 2008.

James Trucilla said memories of watching his father in 2007 motivated him during workouts and the race.

“I was a chunkier fella as a kid,” he said, “so I kind of envied those who could run long like my dad. To now share this race with him is a special thing.”

Erie resident also in Boston debut

Mark Badaracco was among the northwestern Pennsylvania residents who also appeared in Monday’s marathon. The information systems manager for Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine finished in 3:10.04.

Badaracco, 41, sought a final time in the 2:45 to 2:50 range, but the constant rainfall and a notable headwind thwarted such an outcome.

Badaracco began running in 2008. He said it was a way to help aid a sister-in-law who founded a nonprofit called Running for Parkinson’s after she was diagnosed with the disease.

However, it was the domestic terrorist bombings during the 2013 Boston Marathon that spurred Badaracco to one day run in that same event. That year, homemade bombs set off near the finish line killed three people and injured hundreds of others.

BAA officials, on the 10-year anniversary of that incident, held a ceremony ahead of Monday’s race.

Badaracco, who was sponsored by LECOM, was grateful he was part of it.

“I learned a lot going through that training, mostly that I had to take it more seriously,” he said. "Not a lot of people get to do this.”

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Contact Mike Copper at mcopper@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNcopper.

Northwestern Pa. results

Results for current or former northwestern Pennsylvania residents who competed in the 127th Boston Marathon:

Male

Michael Williamson, Erie, 31, 2:36.25

Jeremy Post, Centerville, 40, 2:59.30

Scott Shannon, 45, Conneaut Lake, 3:03.08

Daniel Bender, Girard, 43, 3:04.38

Mark Badaracco, Erie, 41, 3:10.04

Bob Harrington, Waterford, 54, 3:22.24

S. Mark Courtney, Grove City, 67, 3:35.07

Joe Hampy, South Boston, Massachusetts, 28, 4:03.24

James Trucilla, Boston, 26, 4:52.21

Damion Terry, Erie, 27, 5:49.16

Women

Chelsea Benson, Russell, 27, 3:16.57

Cindy Kuhn, Waterford, 52, 3:28.29

Heather Alexander, Russell, 41, 3:33.02

Bridget Fetzner, Waterford, 48, 3:33.39

Karey Elliott, North East, 48, 3:36.34

Jamie Dekorte, Erie, 26, 3:37.18

Nicole Welch, Erie, 33, 3:40.19

Michelle Griffith-Aresco, Erie, 45, 3:43.04

Julie DeMarco, Jamestown, 48, 3:56.00

Christine McWilliams, Meadville, 50, 4:03.55

Chelsea Swift, Erie, 26, 4:10.17

Note: Former Erie resident Brooke Suesser, 26, ran the course in 3:09.35. Suesser now lives in Boulder, Colorado.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Three Cathedral Prep football champions complete Boston Marathon