Paul Short Preview: Short version

I saw the post about the teams list, and after looking at it for about 10 seconds I knew I was going to take a break from homework and write a post.

Brown Race Teams: Bensalem, Conestoga, Cumberland Valley, Easton, Freedom, Hershey, Malvern Prep, GTF, Parkland, Pottsgove?  Scranton Prep? South Williamsport, Spring Ford

Brown Race Individuals: Matthew Scarpill (CBS), Diestelow,  Holm

Ben Szuhaj of Penn Charter will take on the White race. 

To be honest I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay around to watch the boys High school Brown race at 3:15, since I finish my race around 2:15 and I have a concert to attend that begins at 3PM, but it’s going to be worth going late to see this epic high school race. This could just be bigger than the state meet will be:

PA#1 Colin Abert, PA #2 Jaxson Hoey, PA#3 Paul Power, PA#4 Griffin Molino, and PA #7 Andrew Marston. This race is going to absolutely insane up front. Abert loves to take it out fast, and Molino is always ready to roll. These two runners both ran 15:54 at states last season in different races and are ready to bang. Molino has yet to run against any real competition, and boy will he get some here. He started out the year as PA#1 and he will look to reclaim that spot with a win. Hoey has taken down James, Brophy, and I’m going to count Zach Brehm in there as well. Now he will have the opportunity to attack the best from ‘A’ and ‘AAA’ in a very quick race. Hopefully he’ll have recovered well from the dehydration, which can be very difficult. Paul Power will look to prove his 15:50 on the state course was not a onetime thing. He’ll have the opportunity here to really show his chops on a quick course. Andrew Marston will debut in his first 5k, yes Jarrett I’m not counting that 3 Mile race. I think he’s better on hilly courses since he likes to run even, but this group will take it out hard. His 14:31 over Bryce Millar does show me however that he’s ready to close hard and is in ~15:10 shape for 5k. Get excited because this front pack will be on fire out front. We might even see a sub 15 minute race. Frankly, I expect it.

(I also didn’t even mention the sophomore sensation Nick Dahl who ran 15:29 for his first 5k. I have no doubt he’ll continue that trend here, but he might hurt a bit at the end if he ends up going out with this pack of 5, which I expect him too. He’s gutsy and good, but I think one of these guys would have to have an off day to lose to him this early in the season, but look for him to be up front and under 15:30 granted it’s a fast day). 

Behind this studly group of 5 runners we’ll get to see runners like Scarpill and Diestelow go against Killan from ‘Stoga and Hepp from GTF along with what should be a great battle between Malvern Prep’s runners and ‘Stoga’s guys. I think this will really show us who the top team in the state is. Both have strong low sticks with a nice 2-3 combo, but frankly Malvern Prep looks better all around. Maybe ‘Stoga’s #5 will be better, but even that should be a close battle. MP looks fantastic and I really think they’re one of the top teams in the region, but the two will be within 15 points of each other no doubt. Germantown friends is another team to watch for in this battle. They tied ‘Stoga in a 3000m race, but have no looked as good since. This will be another opportunity for them to get on the Top 10 list.

Connor Holm will look to have a big race after a disappointing 17:05 season opener at Rose-Tree. 

We get to see a District 11 preview as well with Easton, Parkland, and Freedom all attending. This will be Freedom’s biggest race of the season before Districts and they’ve got something to prove with that pack after Easton got off to a pretty impressive start at PTXC. Easton has by far the best 1-2 combination, but Freedom’s pack will look to interrupt them. Parkland is an underdog here, but could very well be the top D11 team at the end of the day with Newman and Kyvelos in the lead and we might see a big jump from sophomore Michael Geiger.

We’ve also got some big D3 names in Cumberland Valley and Hershey who will be looking to mix it up with some of the District 1 schools like Pottsgrove, Bensalem, and potentially Spring Ford. CV could make a move into the Top 10 teams list with a 3^rd or 4^th place finish in this race.

Again, Hope to see many of you there!

--ForrestCRN

Forrest's Very Brief Weekend Thoughts

Hey guys, I've got 2 exams this week and 4 essays due, so I'm pretty swamped. I will be at Paul Short this weekend to compete and watch some races, so that should be fun :) I'm on Muhlenberg's team, so if you see our tent feel free to swing by and say hello! I will bring a camera for interviews if anyone is interested in talking. All of this being said, here are some quick thoughts of mine on the Weekend. There are obviously way more story lines than I wrote about (like Webb being right under 15 minutes for 3 miles was left out). I am working on a Top 50 and will attempt to put it out on Thursday or Friday if I can get my work done early. If not I will just wait till next weekend to put one out. Sorry for the slacking!!!

Carlisle was absolutely crazy and totally mixed up some rankings race wise. Jaxson Hoey went down due to dehydration despite having a sizable lead of 15m or so on Zach Brehm with 100m to go. Hopefully he recovers well and will be ready to try and break 15 minutes with Abert and Power this coming weekend at Paul Short. York Suburban looked fantastic and Brady Wilt was their top guy at 20^th place. Wilt can do better and this team has a really surprising 4-5 punch, which is awesome to see out of a AA team. Carlisle had a tough day overall despite Brehm winning the meet and taking his home course record. Van Kooten and Gebhart didn’t look amazing, but it’s still early in the season for both of them and I’m not worried in the slightest that they will be top 15 if not top 10 performers come the state meet. Sappey is really coming up big for the DT West team, but they’re going to need some guys to step up if they want to place top 5 in the state this season. 

Andrew Marston took a huge step in my mind this weekend with a big 14:31 result for 3 miles. He beat out one of the top guys in NJ, Bryce Millar by 2 seconds who is a speed guy, but Marston wasn’t afraid of his finishing speed. It’s #2 All-Time on that lay-out apparently, which is great to see from Marston. With 5 guys breaking 16 minutes for 3 miles translates pretty well, in my opinion, for them to run about 30 to 40 seconds slower at Districts. Marston seriously does look like a low 15 minute guy right now, and he’s going to need to with Power, Brophy, and Comber all looking great this season. Webb has a little ways to go still in order to get that credit from me. The 3200/4x8 is still different from XC where he placed worse last year in the state meet than he did the year before. 

From the CRN meet we saw more than I expected. On a very hot day Casey Comber ran 1 second off of the tied course record by FL Finalists Chris Campbell and Keith Capecci. He’s one of two undefeated runners this season for invitationals (the other one is Griffin Molino who continues to run 15:43). Comber went out in 4:55 and held it very well for the whole course. CB West looked very solid with Fortna getting the best of a very tried Brian Arita. The CRN boys had a race against Bensalem on Tuesday, ran 16 miles on Wednesday, 11x1k tempo on Thursday, and 7 miles on Friday as a pre-race. These guys had a huge training blog this week and were really tried. This was their last big invitational before leagues, and oh man I can’t wait for them to drop bombs. My sleeper Seth Slavin got into a bigger invitational and didn’t look as good as I would have hoped and still has a bit to go. 

--ForrestCRN

Council Rock North Preview

Hi guys,

Last year Carlisle was the big name meet this weekend, but this year it’s looking like Council Rock North is the place to be. But Carlisle still has some names at it so if I have some free time later I will try to put together a Carlisle preview as well.

I’d like to congratulate Forrest on 300,000 page views! He’s done that pretty much on his own, Evan and I have only come on as writers recently. That’s a milestone and thank you to everyone who reads the blog and helped it get there.

Now onto some Council Rock North previewing:

Take a look at some of the teams attending:

Bensalem

Cardinal O’Hara (#2) (listed but I doubt it, can’t see why they’d run an A squad after Foundation)

Central Bucks West (#8)

Conestoga (#4)

Council Rock North (#10)

Council Rock South

Downingtown West (#7)

On the team side this looks like Conestoga’s race to lose if they are as good as they’re billed to be. That sentence has no malicious undertone, rather Conestoga has looked good at all of the shorter distances we’ve seen them at this year, so I think they’ll run well at 5k, but there’s always that possibility they’re a bit slow over the first hard 5k race. But the Marston-Nelson-Murray trio should be enough for Conestoga to just about put away the meet. If Conestoga falters, D-West will be there to jump on them for it. D-West lost to Conestoga by 52 points at the Cherokee Challenge, but most of the difference came from the 3 and 4 guys. So if Shaun Bullock and Charlie Barton can move up for D-West they will have a very real chance at winning the invite. Some sleeper teams to win it are Central Bucks West and Council Rock North. Both teams have looked good at recent dual-meets (I’m not sure of time credibilities) and have outside chances to beat Conestoga or D-West, CRN especially so since they are at home.

Here’s the picture on the individual side with my predictions:

1.      Andrew Marston (#6)

2.      Casey Comber (#13)

3.      Henry Sappey (#33)

4.      Seth Slavin (#31)

5.      Matthew Scarpill (Just-Missed List)

6.      Brian Arita (#36)

7.      Rock Fortna (Just-Missed List)

8.      Ryan Barton

9.      Killian Nelson

10.   PJ Murray

11.   Andrew Hanna

12.   Nick Cruickshank

13.   Brian Mass

14.   James Cooper

15.   Shaun Bullock

16.   Declan McDonald

17.   Joe Maguire

18.   Charlie Barton

19.   Alex Ramirez

20.   Sean Griswold

Leading the way I think is Andrew Marston. He’s looked great so far this season and I think is really breaking out even more this season. Comber’s also looked good and I think he will give him a challenge and stay close, but in the end I have Marston coming away with the win. Behind them I have Henry Sappey in third over Seth Slavin. Sappey’s been a surprise this year and I think he will continue to be so I’m picking him over Slavin. Then Matthew Scarpill has looked better and better this season so he comes ready to play and takes down 5^th. While this is Arita’s home course and he may be a bit low in my predictions, he’s just been solid but not great this season. Behind that group is Rock Fortna, Ryan Barton, Killian Nelson and PJ Murray. All are guys who have had good starts to this season and are looking to continue to build towards a strong finish. This meet obviously isn’t as star-studded as Foundation last week or Briarwood the week before, but there’s a good group of runners here and I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do.

-Cummings

P.S. There won’t be any Eastern PA Rankings for this week, but I’m thinking it might be fun to give it a cool name. My current idea is “Beasts of the East”. Let me know if you like the name or have a different idea.

300,000 Views!

I’m probably too excited about hitting 300k views on this blog than I should be. I have a couple things to say really quickly here:

First I want (and need) to give a huge shout out to Chris Cummings and Evan Hatton for doing a fantastic job. I can’t thank these guys enough for helping me out with the blog this year. I honestly do not have the time to keep up with everything this season and they’ve allowed me to blog on occasion and keep up with the sport I love so much, while also not being stressed out by the need for constant posting and getting information to all of you guys. They’ve exceeded my expectations and more as writings and analysts and I’m so proud and humbled to work alongside of them. This blog probably wouldn’t still be running if they weren’t here to help. Make sure to thank them for their efforts so far and what will look to be a continually great job in the future.

Next I wanted to discuss Penntrack a little bit. I talked with Lex on the phone for ~20 minutes today and we discussed a variety of topics. Lex is doing his best to get me my account back, and I will no longer be promoting the blog on their site anymore, which is fine by me. I do want to address a major concern that he had here: defaming comments about him and Don on the blog. I usually censor the comments against him and Don, and I will be doing so in the future if they are derogatory. It is fine to criticize or disagree with someone on their work, but be constructive. There is a difference, and I did a poor job in terms of addressing those types of comments on the blog. I don’t like censoring anything on the blog, as you guys know, but I do believe it’s important to be aware of how we speak and address one another. As Lex said to me today, Penntrack’s writers are doing the same thing Chris, Evan, and I are doing: their best. We have a different approach to how the sport is looked at and viewed, and this blog is for analysis. Penntrack is beginning to embrace that, and they are learning how to develop and write about stories in a manner than Etrain and I have been lucky enough to work on the several years now in order to acquire a style that works for us. 

Thanks so much for all of your continued viewership. Remember to give us suggestions on how to improve and we will do our best to work on it. I wish I had the time to do more commendation that Etrain has been doing, but my 6 classes, practice, and two other jobs are making it difficult to have the type of time.

--ForrestCRN

P.S. I gotta give a shout out to my CRN boys who just had a big dual meet victory over Bensalem with 6 guys under 17:20 on their home course. For some perspective I never broke 17:30 on that course and ran 16:44 at Districts.