New England XC Championships

Hey guys, glad to be back doing some analysis! I love readying the race stories, and sorry for not having them all put out yet, it’s been a really busy week for me, but I should get rolling on more of them next week. They’ll all be up by Friday. 

I did a lot of research going into the big meets this weekend to try and catch up on everything that I’ve missed all season from these teams and individuals. And in that process as I realized last season, PA Milesplit does a fantastic job compared to most other milesplit sites, which have absolutely no coverage, it blows my mind. So I wanted to take a brief moment to appreciate those guys, since often times they get ragged on.

ANYWAY, let’s jump into this, as most of the write up will be talking about how this affects PA guys.

Trevor Hooper wins the race in 15:08, which I believe is a course record, and has a very solid 3 guys behind him for Ridgefield, but a lack of a 5^th man really hurt them and they end up losing the title to La Salle. La Salle’s 4^th man dropped out of Great American, which is why they placed 12^th at that meet, but had a solid showing just 5 points behind Tatnall at the Manhattan Invitational. They ran very similar place and time difference wise between runners both then and today. Right behind Tatnall means that PA teams are safe from any team in New England. NE can usually put a solid team or two together and they have this year with La Salle, Ridgefield and Bishop Hendricken all looking solid, but they’re around 5-10 in the region, so no need to fret PA teams who are looking to place within the top 5. Tatnall is around the 5^th best team, but I think it’s pretty clear that NA and O’Hara can score 25 to 40 points more than them on any given day, so I don’t think they’re to be that worried about either.

 I’m 95% positive that Ridgefield, BH, and La Salle will all be attending the NXN meet. BH goes every season and La Salle has travelled so much this year that it’s clearly got to be a goal. Ridgefield finds a 5^th man in the next week, they’ll be the biggest threat to push into the top 3/4 teams. I think Darien HS (4^th) has a good chance to go as well, with means that 2^nd place finisher Alex Ostberg will be attending that meet. I’ll be looking out for interviews and news articles to see if they admit going one way or the other within the next 48 hours.

Other individuals are Josef Holt (Sr, Telstar-ME) and Christian Alvarado (Fairfield Prep- CT) are the 3-4 finishers in the race and not too far behind the top 2. They’ve both got FL on their minds, so let’s examine these two.

Christian Alvarado – 4^th place at New England’s… 9^th place at FL Regionals last season… Wow. Alvarado didn’t have the XC race of his career, but he’s a 4:11 miler, ran 8:26 for 3^rd place at Penn Relays last season, and he always shows up when he needs to. His coach Bob Ford Jr. has sent 4 guys to FL nationals, which is extremely impressive and I think Alvarado should be in the running once again this season. At the Connecticut State Championships last weekend he beat out Trevor Hopper at the line and they got Ostberg by 7 seconds. 

Josef Holt-Andrews(I’m calling him Holt for the purposes of this article): Holt has PR’s of 4:19 for 1600, 9:16 for 3200, and he placed 16^th place at New Balance Outdoor Nationals during his 14:57 5k effort on the track, pretty impressive. He ran the 4^th fastest clocking during the Manchester Invitational, broke the course record at the Maine Festival by 20 seconds, and he won Maine’s state title. He’s been cruising most of the season and this was his first big competition of the year, which could have thrown him off. I think he seems to be a legitimate candidate to place top 10 at FL Northeast. He’s been in the top 25 of Saucony’s rankings for a lot of the season, so watch out for him to bounce back.

Dan Curts (Ellsworth): 4:14.02 1600 and 9:16 3200 PR’s. He beat Holt by 4 seconds earlier this season for the #2 All-Time at the Manchester Invitational. Sadly a hamstring injury has been limiting his training for the past month. Curts did not race at New England’s, so I think it’s safe to say he won’t be at FL Regionals, which is a shame, cause the kids an animal. But PA individual wise this opens up a new spot in the top 10, since I believe Curts had one of those spots on lock. 

For some reference, Curts and Holt went 2^nd and 4^th All-Time on Derryfield Park’s course with times of 15:23 and 15:27 back on September 28^th. Now on November 9^th, Trevor Hopper, Alex Ostberg, Holt, Alvarado, and Tierney all broke 15:18. I’m not sure what the top time ever ran on the course is, but the top 5 list looks extremely different now. All of these runners are threats to make nationals, wherever they go.

 

Conclusion: I just would like to reiterate and make that part clear. If you’re from PA these are the boys who will compete for those national spots. Hopper, Ostberg, Holt, Alvarado, and Tierney are all guys to look out for. I think Alvarado and Hopper are as close to locks as you can get for a spot into nationals. But don’t sleep on Ostberg who has been just behind them all season and Holt is clearly very good. Tierney had a fantastic race, but RB hasn’t been showing up at regionals the past few years, but he should mix it up in the top 10 to 15 guys. 

Also, Ridgefield is probably the best team out of the area, their 2-4 guys are always within 5 seconds of each other until this past race, otherwise they would have beaten La Salle. I think both of them are right around Tatnall’s level (top 30 in the nation), but I don’t believe any of them are good enough to challenge much further than 5^th place. 

--ForrestCRN