Opening Week Results - 8/30-8/31

 Welcome back to Cross Country Season! We've got our first races in the books as 2014 kicks off. Not a lot happening and we won't be updating our Lists until next Sunday, but here is a quite bit of analysis regarding the meets from 8/30.

9^th Oakbourne Relays

The season has begun, and what better place to start than a meet at West Chester Henderson. Conestoga looked really good with Marston running 10 flat for 2 miles (4:58/5:02 splits), while 4 of his teammates averaged right around or under 5:20 pace (Cooper, Murray, Nelson, and Sharp). Nelson was really impressive to me as he went out in 5:04 to keep with Marston and still came back in a solid 5:20. Its early, but I’m excited about this team. The DTW boys looked good as well. The Barton brothers ran really strong, and I liked what we saw from Sappey. They’ve got to get that pack a bit more even, but it’s early. Henderson not showing a lot of their cards early, Knapp only ran 5:04 and 5:10 and Barchet had 5:13/5:20 splits. They’ve got a lot of time and Smucker should develop well.

John Sharp Invitational

We saw nothing out of the ordinary at the John Sharp invitational. The course was added onto and changed quite a bit from last season, so it’s tough to compare the results, but Jake Brophy looked really good, as expected with a 16:05 opening 5k. Brian Arita was in no-man’s land and cruised to a second place finish. Central Bucks West looked fantastic to open the season, per usual. They’re a team very similar to Tennent in that they’re low volume and work and always come out strong. CB East took second over CR North, but North’s potential 4^th man was in the JV race, or they would have been second. Nothing to worry about for them however, as we see this every year. I wanted to note that Sam Earley and Ethan Koza for North ran pretty well in the Two Mile. Koza ran sub 18 for 5k earlier this season already for North, so I’m excited about these two youngsters. I will say that this CB West team is young and they’ve got a lot of potential, but I see them placing around 8-10 in the District.

39^th Cliff Robbins Invitational

Quite an impressive meet as we saw Dominic Hockenbury be the first PA running to break 16 minutes for 5k with a time of 15:51! He destroyed the field that included studs Nathan Morgan, Matt Murray, and Mark Arzie. Morgan placed second in a 16:43 effort, which is good to see. Like Arita at John Sharp he probably got caught in no-man’s land and relaxed for second place. Not sure what happened to Arzie who placed 11^th in the field, but I’m sure we’ll see him back up with Morgan soon. Solid race overall from Scranton Prep who took the team title pretty handily. Not sure if their whole varsity team raced, but Ben Evans lead them with a 17:02 effort. No doubt Ryan Burke will be up there soon as well.

Also wanted to point out that Dallas took 3^rd place with freshman making up their 3-6 spots. Pretty impressive stuff and a team we should look for in the future. 

40^th McDowell Invitational

Not much to talk about here, but I needed to mention that Isaac Wilson, who is a 4:54 and 10:21 kid, ran 16:35 for 5k… apparently. I’ll be watching this development, but he did beat out solid runners in Dan Wilcko and Gary Olson. Could he be the first junior with a huge jump?

43^rd California University of PA/Marty Uher Invitational

Mt. Lebo dominated this meet. How dominate you ask? They went 1-5, 7, and 10. Not bad at all. They’ve got a new kid in Bryce Brandenstein who placed 4^th for them as a freshman, and he could be a key piece to this team that had a 23 second spread with just one runner breaking 18 minutes. I’m not sure what the course is like, but I’m guessing pretty hilly and the Mt. Lebo guys took it a bit easy. Either way, an impressive performance and spread from this squad.

Big Valley Invitational

In the AA scene we saw a big victory by William Kachman of Bedford who took the title in a blazing 16:11 over sophomore Anthony Bach who ran 17:06 (in the AA race). Kachman’s teammate Zane Baker took 4^th in 17:23. Clearly Kachman has turned the corner in the distance events, and I think he’s going to make a challenge at Hockenbury at the state meet. If the races were combined Kachman took down the likes of Alex Milligan and Brad Foust by just over 10 seconds, which is super impressive. 

Milligan took this meet to prove he is ready to take it to the next level for State College. After losing a leader in Cather, Milligan clearly wants the role and he beat out Brad Foust by 4 seconds with a time of 16:24. Foust had a solid season opener taking 3^rd place with his teammate Dominic Stroh placing 4^th in 16:38. I like the work from the rest of the State College squad with Beyerle and Feffer running together for 6^th and 7^th place with Heatwole not far behind in 9^th.  This team is going to be really solid and it seems like they’ve got a solid 5^th man in junior Matthew Balogh.

Bo Dinger under-impressed at the first meet with a 17:57 finish for 33^rd place. Not sure what happened, but he’ll bounce back later on in the season; he’s usually a late starter.

Enos Yeager Invitational

Zach Brehm and Daniel Green battled it out at the Enos Yeager invitational over the 2.5 mile lay-out with Brehm claiming victory in 12:12 to Green’s 12:19. Not sure what to make of the times, so I’m not going to try to convert them to 5k or anything. It’s most about Brehm’s victory, but Green’s very performance for second place. Wisner and DeAngelo took the 3-4 positions just over 30 seconds back of Brehm, where they were stuck by themselves. I think they’ll make a good 2-3 punch for Carlisle, who is going to need some help to make it back to the state meet.

--ForrestCRN