The Second Weekend: 9/6/14

We saw a variety of big meets this weekend, so let’s get rolling with some analysis!

PTXC 6 

Well any doubts that we might have had about how Colin Abert’s season would go have been totally shattered. The senior opened up with a PTXC record in a stunning time of 15:21.37!!! This is no slouch course and to my knowledge the layout hasn’t been changed. Abert is clearly not messing around and his team looked very strong behind him. Junior Kevin Lapsansky finished 5^th in 16:28 and the team as a whole took second place as they beat out a tightly packed Cumberland Valley squad. If their 5/6 runners in Logan Koch (so) and Sean Guydish (fr) can develop and drop some time this team could be a force to be reckoned with out of District 11.

Behind Abert was District AA stud Dominic Hockenbury, who ran 15:58 to continue his streak of breaking 16 minutes for 5k this season. I’m not sure how the race played out, but he probably ran the entire race by himself, since Abert loves to go out hard. His time is just over a second faster than what Abert ran last season as an 11^th grader, which proves just how good Hockenbury is. Coming in with the 3^rd and 4^th spots are Zach Seiger and Sean Weidner. I wish Seiger challenged Hockenbury more than he did, but still a strong showing from the junior. Weidner was ten seconds faster than last year, and it great to see him challenging Seiger. No longer having Groh and Nissley to follow, Weidner was been able to take the next step after a strong season on the track. His teammate Colton Cassel looked strong in 19^th place just 5 seconds behind the top sophomore in the race. 

Other runners to note is a 10^th place finish from Brad Foust, who has under-impressed so far this season. We didn’t see his teammate Stroh run this weekend and the squad as a whole looked a bit week, but hopefully everyone is alright for the Altoona boys. One of my favorite duo’s are back in Will Sponaugle and Aidan Demko who started off the season pretty well with 14^th and 15^th place finishes just under 17 minutes. If they can retain old form and stay healthy they’ll be a force to reckon with out of District 3. My boy Jack DiCintio looked solid in 16^th place, but not as impressive as Drew Wilkinson from Red Land who made a big jump to place 11^th overall and will be a key piece for their squad. (Kyle Shinn, what happened? 24^th place?)

Lastly I’d like to discuss Cumberland Valley’s team: Quinn Wasko. Talk about a senior stepping up into the spot light and getting it done in front of a young squad. Wasko has started off his season blazing into 7^th place with a time of 16:42 as he left the pack of Yahya Soliman (18^th), Owen Seeber (20^th), and Josh Higgins (27^th) in the dust. If he can keep this up, Wasko will be a valuable low stick for CV. They need to develop a 5^th man, but I have a feeling someone was not running from their varsity today.

In terms of the Blue Race, we saw Casey Comber take an easy win clocking 16:29, which was almost 30 seconds in front of the next competitor. Clearly a training run from Comber, and I can’t wait to see him really race, but overall a nice start for this young man.

Germantown Friends XC Invitational – 3k

To my knowledge this is the first time this invitational has gotten some attention from bigger teams in the state, but we saw quite a few interesting results. Andrew Marston showed that he truly is a stud running 8:51 for 3k, on grass, with hills. Wow. Behind him was Sam Ritz in 9:03, which is to be expected from the Miler. Hopefully this transitions well into some strong 5k times. And I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by Nick Dahl tearing up the grass in 9:09 over 3k. He reminds me of Jaxson Hoey in that he’s got amazing track credentials, but still has to prove himself over the 5k distance after a breakout track year. He did however take Alex Knapp to town by a 10 second margin (9:19 for Knapp). Henderson did not look good at this meet, but we know how well they peak in late October and remember we’re training for 5k’s not 3k’s, so no reason to look into these results too much. That being said, Coach Kelly has a lot of work to do with this team if they want to make it out of District 1.

Conestoga looked great 1-4 with Nelson and Murray killing it this weekend. I also liked what I saw from Cooper. Will Sharpe had a great 2xmile time trial last weekend, but he faded from that pack quite a bit over 3k. McCarty, Iffert, Boccella, and Sharpe will need to find something between them to be a strong 5^th man for ‘Stoga if they wish to be competitive at the NXN Regional Championships where they are rumored to be headed.

But how about GFS as a whole? I did not do nearly enough research on this team going into the year, but they tied ‘Stoga today (40-40)! Of course it is over 3000m, but they’ve got a great 1-2 punch in Dahl and Hepp, plush a nice pack behind them. Joe Newmann has made quite a jump this season, which will be key for this team. Hopefully we continually see strong improvement from all of them.

Another quick note: Ryan Tung did not race for North Penn. If anyone has information on his status, please let us know!

Twin Valley Raider Invitational

Well I thought that Dominic Digiacomo would be leading the TV squad this year, but the opening weekend Coakley lead a great 1-4 pack of 13 seconds, which sandwiched the Geary brothers. They will however need to get a strong 5^th man, since Wittorff finished a full minute behind their pack. 

Abington Invitational

Malvern Prep decided to attend Abington this season, which was great to see. Jaxson Hoey grabbed a win, on a very hot day, in 15:52 and he was followed by his teammate Billy McDevitt who clocked 16:09. Jaxson’s brother Josh started his high school XC career with a 5^th place showing in 16:22… dang, that’s impressive. Just over 30 seconds away would be their next finisher, Colin Wills in 16:54 for 7^th place and finally Ryan Doane in 17:28 for 15^th. The field was fairly thin this year, which benefitted Malvern Prep, who has quite a bit of gaps between runners and a spread of 1:36. Obviously Jaxson is one of the top runners in the state, but they will need to pack in behind him better in order to qualify for NXN. It’s early in the season however and there should be no cause for alarm just yet.

In other news Henry Sappey looked really great this weekend as he placed 3^rd overall and beat out Diestelow (4^th in 16:22) and Josh Hoey. Sappey is going to be the leader that this team needs, especially with Drew Barton being down on injury. Behind him the squad looked pretty good: Bullock, Barton (Ryan), and O’Neil finished within 20 seconds of each other placing 9^th, 10^th, and 12^th respectively. A normally tight pack broke down on them today in the head, which could be a cause of concern for a squad that was always within 30 seconds of each other 1-5 last year.

As I said earlier Diestelow finished 4^th in 16:22 in a battle against Josh Hoey. Chris Cummings has big hopes for Diestelow, but he didn’t start off his season out of a cannon like Cummings did last year. We’ll need to see solid improvements out of him over the next couple months if he is going to be within medal contention. Josh Smith was reportedly injured on the blog, but he did place 13^th overall in 17:22. Maybe we could get some more information this week about his injury, but hopefully he will be healthy soon and back in low 16 minute shape.

47^th Annual Mill Street Run

Three of the top 4 SOL National team’s showed up at Mill street this year to make the race pretty exciting. Normally CRN only sends a JV squad, but the full varsity came out this year. Brian Arita sat back and played it safe by hanging with the group and pushing for the win over the last 1k. Griswold has already made a jump from the week before, and freshman Ethan Koza was their 6^th man in just over 18 minutes. Once they get Haas and Heintz back from sickness this team will be dangerous. I was pretty impressed by the Bensalem boy’s team led by Alex Ramirez. He had a solid XC season with a PR of 16:21 at the William Tennant Invitational, but he only ran 2:04 and 4:44 outdoors. This 16:23 season opener could be the start of big things for the senior. They’ll need something more out of Tyji May’s, since we know he’s got great potential (16:24 at Districts and 9:48 3200m on the track), but this team opened up the season pretty well. 

Most impressive run of the meet for me was Joseph Maguire. I thought Andrew Hanna would make a big jump this season and possibly challenge Arita in the early season, but Maguire was that man this weekend. He ran 9:45 last outdoor season for 3200m, which totally went under my radar. That 1-2 punch with him and Hanna will be important for a young CR South squad this year.

 

At the publishing of this article the Red, White, and Blue results have not gone up yet, so we will be waiting for that.

That’s all for now Folks!

--ForrestCRN