District Thoughts from Thursday!

I should have done this with the District II and III championships like Etrain did, so here we go with the races from Thursday! -- WPIAL's, District 4, and District 12. Just waiting on District 11.

WPIAL - A

Domenic Peretta is living up to Etrains hopes. He’s coming on really strong and a 16:29 seems pretty solid of a time (I’ll be able to compare and comment when I get to AA and AAA), but he beat the soph stud Griffin Mackey by 21 seconds. That’s big time. Divecchio comes out of the wood works for Burgettstown and has a big race for second in 16:37. Mackey was 16:50 for 3^rd and helped lead his team to a District Championship. The soph’s of Sewickley Academy had big days and senior Pieter Hansen ran very well to place 7^th. This team could be dangerous at the state race. (total points: 67). Winchester Thurston placed 2^nd with an amazing top 3 of Loevner, Littman, Delaney, and Forsythe all in the top 15. Forsythe’s 17:33 seems quite impressive for a freshman. Their 5^th man is only a freshman, Gordon Pollack who placed 61^st. If he has a big day at the state meet this team would look very scary. Greensburg CC grabbed the last spot with a nice spread of 1:08. They beat OLSH by 9 points.

Back to the individual information, I also liked the solid race out of Colten Trimble for 6^th place. He is always impressive on the state course so look for him to have a big race next weekend. He would be a medal threat no question. WT would have 3 to 4 state medalists on their team, which is just ridiculous. With less team points working against them next week I think they’ll be the top team out of D7 for sure and have a great chance as winning a state title.

WPIAL - AA

Knoch won the District AA title with a score of 104 and their team looks very similar to WT. They placed 4 runners in the top 20, but a slower 5^th man heightened their score. Similar to my analysis with WT, if these guys can all place in the top 30 to 40 at the state meet they’ll be looking at a top 3 finish, even with a lagging 5^th man.

South Fayette graduated everyone from last year’s varsity team and they reloaded very well this season. They are led by sophomore Aaron Pfeil who placed 7^th overall and 22^nd place finisher and freshman, Sam Snodgreass. They’ve got seniors in the 3-4 spots and a freshman 5^th man. The inexperience at the state meet for these runners could hurt, but their coach is used to making the meet and I think they’ll do well. The senior leaders will help control the young guys early on and then they’ll finish strong. I’m excited to see how they do. Their total was 139.

 Mars Area and Uniontown Area both grabbed spots scoring 167 and 170 points. UA had two runners in the top 15 and another runner in the top 30, which is a nice top 3. Mars’s team has two pairs of runners a few seconds apart that will help them work together on the hills of Hershey.  And a nice front man in Nathan Mrdjenovich. 

Zach Skolnekovich won the race as expected with a time of 16:45. He couldn’t bring his team to the state meet sadly despite his 1 they placed 6^th. Noah Smith and Sean Hilverding followed in 16:54 and 17:02. Smith has come on very well at the end of the season and Hilverding has run steady all year long and should be a lock to medal and potentially top 10. Indiana Area’s sophomore Sam Lenze was 4^th in 17:12. Maybe he’ll really break out next season and we’ll get to see him and Skolnekovich battle for a couple of years. Also to note Hopewell qualified 3 runners , which is pretty cool.

WPIAL - AAA

North Allegheny looks like a team ready to win a state championship. There. I said it.

Matt McGoey looks like a lock for a top 5 spot right now. He ran 15:57 to win this race by 16 seconds over teammate Hunter Wharrey. Wharrey has to be a top 10 AAA runner as well, and Scott Seel had a big day to place 6^th overall. He’s made some solid improvements this season and on average District 7 has 6 medalists at the state meet, so he might sneak in to the top 25. I do think we’ll see him in the top 35 for sure and most likely in the top 30. That’s a big top 3 for them and Stupak and Deible are both running very well right now. Also they’ve got Tj Robinson on the varsity team, which I’m very excited to see. This team is just looking scary good right now and their total score was just 47 points.

 For second place we see a big shock! Canon-Millan!! Who saw this coming? With a score of 105 pointsThis team looks very good. They have spread of 58 seconds and a top guy in Ethan Linderman who placed 4^th overall. Jonathan Weese and Matt Mansfield came up big time with 17^th and 20^th place finishes and Strosko and Capelli kept the spread close. I’m very impressed right now and I’m not sure what else so say, let’s look at what happened to Mount Lebanon.

They scored 135 points, but they really underwhelmed as a team. Maybe they were just looking to qualify (perhaps Evan will give us insight), but Baun placed 9^th overall Harris and Brandenstein were behind McMillan’s 4 and Gunzenhauser was Lebo’s #4 placing 33^rd while running just a second in front of Kalapos. The fact that their 2-3 and 4-5 placed exactly a second apart makes me feel like they were putting in a hard effort but not going all out. Frankly after looking at this for a bit I think they’re going to have a big race next weekend. 

North Hills just misses out after McNally had a tough race to finish 39^th. They scored 180 points, so I don’t think we’d see them beat Mt. Lebo today, but online says they raced an 8^th grader, Tom Brown, who ran 17:51. If it’s true, that’s very impressive. Finally, Heinauer and Burchlaw placed 8^th and 11^th combined and both will be moving onto the state meet.

Well we know who took the first two places, but the 3^rd spot was grabbed by the up and coming Plum star Jake Susalla. He was on my list to break out and I’m really excited about how fantastic he’s been this season, specifically towards the end. He won Grove City and now this huge 16:26. I think he’s a lock for a state medal, which is awesome. Linderman had a very impressive 16:34 to lead his team to the upset and I think he’s another lock for a medal out of this district. The biggest race we saw today however was from Seneca Valley’s Mike Kolor. I put him 50^th on the list and hoped he would be big time and he’s really under-impressed all season and no way would I have called this. Maybe top 15 at max I would have guessed, but 5^th. Wow. That 16:38 looks good and he must have outkicked Seel for it. If he can pull out another race like this he’ll be a medal threat for sure.

 Jason Krist is finishing his season strongly with a great 7^th place finish. Wolk, Rader, Graca (are hills his weakness?), Kennedy (big race end of the season for this young man, second year qualifying), Trottier, Quiggle (also impressed), freshman Noah Beveridge along with a few others, that included a Pittsburgh CC runner whose name was not Jeff Van Kooten. He entered the race, but fell up short in 17:11. It seems like he’s injured with something and I hope he takes some time off and we can see him have a big outdoor season. He looked great in XC, but a break is needed. Daniel Young was his teammate who got the nod along with Schleicher and Westrick of Pine-Richland and Chartiers Valley.

Also Peretta’s solo’d 16:29 looks pretty good right now as well.

District 4

District 4 - AA

Mt. Carmel Area got the win with 4 runners in the top 10 and their 5^th and 6^th runners finishing together in 26^th and 27^th place. This team looks really good right now and I won’t post it a 3^rd time, but you guys know how much I love a strong top 4 runners at the state meet, especially in AA. Lewishburg Area takes second to a very good quad, but they return their top 6 runners and the top 3 are sophomores, so they’ll be a team to look out for next season. Simon Smith went out really, really hard (2:43) and slowed up a bit into a 9:32 3k and finished in 16:17. I hope he doesn’t go out that hard at states, because the hills of Hershey would ruin him. Quincy Amabile qualified again for Mifflinburg and Milton Area’s freshman Tyler Lesser grabbed the last spot. 

District 4 - A

Not shockingly NEB put 4 in the top 10 much like Mt. Carmel, but they put all 7 runners in the top 20. A total time average just 15 seconds slower than Mt. Carmel’s. Warrior Run grabbed the second sot with 5 in the top 30 to finish with a total score of 91 points.

Griffin Molino dominated the race from the gun. His first 1k was in 2:46 and he was 16 seconds ahead of the field. His 3k split was an quick 9:19 and he finished in 15:42. He’s clearly getting ready to roll at Hershey. That’s a 10 flat conversion, which is basically what he went out in last season (9:59), and I think we’ll see something similar this year, but with a stronger last mile. Behind him we saw nice races from senior Bryce Gavitt and Hunter Crawley to take the 2^nd and 3^rd spots. In this race the last qualifier was also a freshman, this time it is Quinn Serfass of Loyalsock Township. 

District 12 - A

Not surprisingly Masterman won the district title in dominating fashion with a score of 16 points as they put their entire varsity in the top 8… Shane Mills broke it up with a 5^th place finish.

District 12 - AA

MBAP won in a significant fashion as well with 5 in the top 12 and finished with a total 29. Rastatter lead the team and took the individual title in 16:56. 

District 12 - AAA

LaSalle takes down O’Hara!!! Oh boy this is huge. Despite O’Hara running easy and going 1-3 (16:41-2 for them) LaSalle put all 5 of their runners in the top 11 and their whole varsity before O’Hara’s 5^th. Their 21 second spread was extremely impressive. They had 4 runners in front of Saint Joseph’s Prep runners Pisacano and Fisher. They’re looking really, really good right now and could very well place as high as second at the state meet if they can keep a spread under 25 seconds. 

O’Hara does have the advantage of the strong top 3 though. Drew Pastore had a poor race for 16^th overall (6^th man) and my expectations were clearly too high for him.  Patrick James also had a tough day and placed 42^nd overall in a time of 19:09. The fact that they’ve got 3 potential state medalists and they’ll be behind NA by about 5 or 10 points after the 3^rd man, they’ve got to be a lock for top 4 or 5. If some runners really step this team does still have a minor shot at the state title, but it’s looking unlikely.

District 11 - A
Both Notre Dame and Moravian Academy had 5 runners in the to 20, but Notre Dames big 3 were able to get the best of Moravian Academy's low stick, and district champion Sam Li.

 District 11 - AA

As the post-season gets underway it's no surprise to see Kyle Gonoude racing well. He repeats as district champion and ran almost 30 seconds faster this season. Johnathan Condly had a very good race to challenge Gonoude but in the end placed second in 16:43, just 11 seconds behind. Gonoude will be challenging for a to 5 to 10 place, while Condly looks like a lock to medal, but how low can he go?

Allentown CC put 4 in the top, which helped lead them to a 3 point victory over Jim Thorpe Area, a team which was led by the 2^nd and 3^rd place finishers.

District 11 - AAA

No real surprises from the District 11 AAA race, but Easton Area looked very strong in their district win over Parkland: 46-76. Abert tied his course record and Lapsansky ran a very quick 16:08. Remember nobody had broken 16:04 before Abert. I think Abert is the clear top guy in AAA this season, and Lapsansky is a lock to medal in my mind. Quigley also ran a solid 16:21. 

It rained this morning which slowed down this course with rolling hills and sharp turns. That being said Easton’s team average was 16:47, which is 3 seconds faster than Freedom’s last year. I think Easton can finish around 7-10^th at states. Also I want to give a big shout out to Freedom. In the face of injuries this team still almost made it to the state meet with Quigley placing 3^rd and Alpaugh, after not racing all season, placed 5^th overall and beat out studs Seth Slavin and Alex Fitch (they placed 6^th and 7^th respectively). 

Koch and Grunwald ran together, which makes me believe that Easton has even more in them. Grunwald has been just 5 to 10 seconds behind Easton’s #3 Sherman most of the season, but this race he was 32 seconds behind. If he’s healthy and just had a bad race, this Easton team could really impress at the state meet.

--ForrestCRN