Red, White and Blue Recap

This past weekend was the famed Red, White and Blue Invitational in Schenley Park and it, once again, did not disappoint.  Matt McGoey and Hunter Wharrey led the way to a 1-2 finish for North Allegheny running 15:27 and 15:32, respectively.  North Allegheny won the team battle scoring 97 points to Mt. Lebanon’s 165.  Grove City, North Hills and Central Catholic rounded out the top 5 with 226, 231 and 274.

Let’s talk about North Hills for a second.  They took 3rd as a team, but I think they are the biggest story of the meet.  Jacob Heinauer was out front for them running a massive 15:55 (a 53 second PR) for 7th overall, and giving North Hills the front runner that they need to contest for a state meet appearance.  Mike Burchlaw ran 16:31 and I’m confident that he will be able to close the gap on Heinauer and help them to place at WPIALs.  If Killian McNally can bounce back and give them a solid #3, they would have one of the best 1-3s in the WPIAL.  I’m really excited to see what they can do as a team.  The fight for the 3rd state spot in the WPIAL should be great this year.

McGoey is a beast right now, plain and simple.  I was receiving updates from my dad, who was at the race while I’m away at school, and he told me McGoey came out of the woods like a shot, there was no question who was going to win the race.  Wharrey set a big PR going 15:32 for 2nd.  The pair were 17 and 12 seconds ahead of Fox Chapel’s Elias Graca, the 1:53 man turned potential XC medalist running 15:44 to PR by just over 50 seconds.  

Speaking of Graca going 15:44, I did a little looking back in time, and of the 32 PA runners who have run under 16:00 at RWB since 2009, 24 have gone on to medal at the state level.  Seven runners ran under 16 minutes this past weekend, with six of them being from PA (McGoey, Wharrey, Graca, Van Kooten, Hilverding and Heinauer).  7 under 16:00 is the most since 2011 when 8 went under the mark.

Top 5 Breakout Perfomances:

Elias Graca, Fox Chapel: 15:44 (previous PR of 16:35 at RWB 2013)

Sean Hilverding, Waynesburg: 15:51 (previous PR of 16:40 at Mingo Classic 2013, already a track presence in AA)

Jacob Heinauer, North Hills: 15:55 (previous PR of 16:48 at RWB 2013)

Zach Skolnekovich, Quaker Valley: 16:00 (previous PR of 16:54 at WPIAL Championships 2013)

Jake Susalla, Plum: 16:07 (previous PR of 16:30 at Grove City Invitational 2013)

Before I end the post, I need to give a shout out to the Mt. Lebanon guys.  Congrats on the 2nd place finish, to Ian Harris and Josh Kalapos on the huge PRs (17:17 to 16:37 for Ian and 18:42 to 17:20 for Josh) and to Bryce Brandenstein for going 17:14 as a freshman.  Can’t wait to see what you guys do the rest of the season.

Thanks for reading!

-Evan