Weekend Results Discussion 9/7

23^rd Big Red Invitational

                This was a solid meet overall. Maplewood goes 1-3, but their lack of a 4-5 hurt them and the depth of West Middlesex allowed them to pull out the invite win 66 to 94. The Parson twins go 1-2 and their teammate Hanz Wentz ran really well to place 3^rd. West Middlesex does need a low stick though, that is a glaring weakness for their squad right now, but they are very young so they should have great improvements throughout the season.

Abington Invitational  

                The meet was as exciting as I could have hoped. WCE, Penncrest, and DTW fought for the team title as CRN ran very well without Wilson and GV looked strong without their 2-3 guys. Chris Cummings ran tons of 3200’s last season and it was a waiting game for when he would break out, that breakout has now arrived. This team does have a history of peaking early, but peaking early just means you won’t improve too much towards the end of the season, if these guys are running this fast this early, they’ll be a force come districts even if they do peak early. They will need a 5^th man though, but Dougherty seems to be in a really nice position as a #4 man.

Henry Sappey from DTW showed a lot of potential last season at districts and it seems he has already turned the corner running a PR right away. I think this team will continue to improve as the season goes on, but they will need to reduce the spread to 30 seconds or less since they don’t have a low stick.

 Proud of CRN’s performance this week without Wilson, if you put him in the mix for a top 3 placing they’re right there with these other teams. Profy has moved up into that 5 spot, but also look for Jr Jesse Laitman to move up as the season goes on as well. They’ll need more consistency out of Simmons however.

With #2 Garrett Zatlin and #3 Thomas Duran not racing (both due to injury I believe) Great Valley managed to hold their own quite well. If they can get just 1 of these guys back into shape (Zatlin was 16:02 at districts last season) they should be able to mix it up for a district spot. If both come back strong they could potentially place second out of District 1. Wish I had posted the write up before the meet because I was hoping Ellis would step up as he is one of the younger ones in the group… and he did; watch for his improvement throughout the year. And yes, Matt Willig placed 20^th, I’m not worried at all, the man comes to play when the going gets tough later in the season. 

Red White and Blue Invitational

CAUTION: If you are a NA hater, skip to the next Invitational Discussion. But first let me give Colin Martin some major props. He had never beaten his twin brother and 3200m State Champion Ethan before, but he makes some huge moves and drops Ethan and Kennedy. 15:18 is ridiculously fast this early, but that course seems to be way fast. Just good to see those 3 guys in good shape early on, I think they’ve all got a great plan and will peak at the perfect time.

NA TIME!!! Not only did NA win the varsity race with 30 points and a 20 second spread (7 in the top 16), but they also won the JV race with only 22 points and a 33 second spread (7 in the top 10) AND they won the freshman race with 45 points (4 in the top 15). So if you were wondering, will North Allegheny not place top 5 in the state anytime soon, the answer would be no, definitely not. This squad has an amazing coach in Neff, but they also have 150 members. He can throw guys against the wall and see who survives to get good runners. There must be so much competition on that team in workouts, something truly special to see such a love of running. I think after this performance they’re clearly the second best team in PA. We won’t really see Henderson’s true potential for a while, but Russell is un-injured as he ran 4:44 this weekend for a mile.

Freshman Eric Kennedy ran 16:58 and would have easily been Kiski’s #3. Other Freshman to break 17 were Shaun Hay from Peters Township (16:48) and Zach Skolnekovich from Quaker Valley (16:54). Look for these 3 younglings as the season progresses. Tons of talent to be breaking 17 so early. 

PTXC 5

                Not sure if anybody watched the race that PennTrack made, but I thought it was pretty well done and let me say Dominic Deluca looked very dominant. That course is really hilly so his 15:43 is the most impressive time and performance, as of right now, in my mind. He looks very comfortable pushing himself up the hills and didn’t need to go to extra gears at the end since he made a big move around 2k and didn’t look back from there. He had about a 10 second lead at 4k, but Groh and Milliron pushed each other to get closer to Deluca, but he was in no danger. Abert went out hard in the first 400m like states last year, but gave up the lead far earlier than I thought. Still, breaking 16 on this course is impressive.

Aaron Lauer had a big race in my opinion placing 8^th in 16:13 and his team did very well placing 3^rd overall. They may become a threat as the season progesses if they can piece a pack together behind what is developing as a nice 1-2 punch between Lauer and sophomore Zach Ziegler (12^th).

                The Lower Dauphin team was very solid, Weidner and Santisanio are running really well placing 13^th and 15^th respectively. They will need a closer #5 though if they want to really compete for a podium position at the state meet. Groh ran really well here last year, but hopefully he’ll continue this success, because he and Nissley are on pace to both medal in my mind. Colton Cassel ran on their varsity this week, just a freshman running 18:00 on a tough course early in the season, if he could step up and be their #5 through strong improvement that would be huge.

                I did think Dallas would do better even though they are a AA team since last season NEB placed 5^th. Their entire varsity is made up of seniors, which is good and bad. Bad because most likely nobody will be making huge drops in time based on just growth, but they are all graduating and should want to do this for each other. They will need to become more of a pack behind Deluca if they wish to get to states.

Quad X High School Invitational

                So I’m not totally sure how this meet works, so if somebody who has raced it can explain it that’d be fantastic! But from what I see result wise, North Penn looked very solid as a team placing 1^st and 8^th. Ryan Grace (sr) and Coon? Ran solid together and split wise were very even. Can’t wait to see this 5 man squad, but I have a feeling they’ll surprise. Pennsbury lost a lot last season, but Webb did run for them with O’Connell and tied for second place with Penn Charter lead by Williams and Szuhaj. Its tough to tell how good of shape everyone is, but I’m sure Webb and Szuhaj were killing it, meaning the NP duo that won must have been doing quite well.

Twin Valley Invitational

                Billy Caldwell came up with another win today; he can with the TV boys until he pulled away in the last mile I’d have to guess. TV is very young, but this is a promising meet. I think they have the potential to crack the top 10 in districts this season, but should be a force in years to come as they are led by juniors and sophomores.