More League Meets! Thursday and Friday Results!

Colonial League Championships

Kyle Gonoude is starting to look a lot stronger with a 16:51 finish on a very difficult Desales course. He also took down Joe Espinal of Wilson who has been running well all season. Saucon Valley gets the championship over Bangor High school with a spread of 48 seconds despite Bangor having 3 runners before SV’s one. Just something to think about it for Etrain’s Top 3 Theory.

Pioneer Athletic Conference

A lot of interesting teams in this Conference, but Paul Power takes the title easily in a time of 16:10. Dylan Eddinger of Boyertown was second in 16:39 to just beat out freshman stud Liam Conway of OJR. Conway ran 16:10 at Paul short, so it looks like Eddinger will be a lock to make it to the state meet from District 1 even though we haven’t seen a lot from him this season.

Pottsgrove looked pretty good as a team with a 38 second spread. It should be a good battle between them and HGP again in AA this season.

Tri-State Coaches Association - AAA

A lot of debate has happened about NA vs. Mt. Lebo after a pretty close race at Foundation between the two teams, but all debate ended last night with North Allegheny taking the win, big time, with a score of only 38 points to Mt. Lebo’s 80!! McGoey broke 16 minutes on the very difficult course layout to grab himself a course record, while Wharrey placed second in 16:23. Scott Seel had the best race of his season running just 17 seconds behind Wharrey and he placed 5^th overall! Stupak stepped up big and dipped right under 17 flat. Frankly, if these are similar times we see from NA at the state meet, which seems reasonable, it’ll look like a lock for them to grab the state title, at this point in time. I’m super impressed by how they ran. It also helps that they’ve got 2 runners next to each other at the 5-6 positions. NA has begun to pull everything together.

This shouldn’t discount how strong Mt. Lebo looked either. Gunzenhauser had a killer race to place 3^rd overall in 16:35 and Baun was 16:52 for 7^th. Harris had a nice race for 16^th and Brandenstein has continued to look good in 17:31, but I did expect him to make bigger improvements. Maybe the long season is getting to the freshman. Stone was their only runner who ran poorly and was their 9^th man, but even if you put him up with Harris this team is still getting beat, handily, by NA. I still believe they’ve got potential to place in the top 4 at the state meet.

Graca proved he could run well on hilly courses with a 6^th place finish in 16:51. Van Kooten continued to struggle with a 10^th place finish in 16:57. Based on his talent and past accomplishments I really think he should have been in the low 16 minutes and beating Wharrey once again. He must be plagued by injury or sickness. If anyone has information to post that’d be great. Altoona had a tough day, but Jerrod Sunderland continues to look great this season with a 16:57 8^th place finish to edge out teammate Brad Foust (who nicked Van Kooten at the line) and placed 9^th. Once again we didn’t see Stroh race and it looks like he’s done for the season, but the top 2 Altoona boys will be making it to the state meet for sure. Foust will have to have a big race if he wants to medal again. 

Also to note: NA’s 6^th man beat out Mike Kolor and Tanner Quiggle (placed 20^th and 21^st)… jeez that’s crazy.

In the AA race we saw Noah Smith get a nice win over Sean Hilverding who raced for the first time since RW&B. Slightly under-impressed by Hilverding’s race after he broke 16 and beat some quality runners at that meet. However Smith has had a solid season and both seem like locks to medal in AA. Uniontown grabbed the win and they’ve got a great 5-7 spread of 1 second. This is always good to see from AA teams, but I don’t think they’ve got the fire power up front to do too much damage at the state meet.

SOL National

The race went out very slowly with nobody wanting to take the lead. At the mile Webb and Arita were in 8^th and 9^th place going out in 5:12. Things barely picked up and they reached two miles in 10:26. Slowly the pace started to drop and Webb kicked it home big time to grab his first XC league title in 15:49, while Arita placed second around 16 flat. Hanna was 3^rd, and Sauer had the biggest race of his season with a 16:15 finish for 4^th place over CR South’s second man, McGuire (5^th). Griswold was 6^th in 16:28 and CRN’s 3-5 runners were all at 16:38/39 to take home the victory by 2 points over Pennsbury whose 5^th man was around 16:48. Since Pennsbury won their dual meet over CRN during the season Pennsbury grabbed the league title by 1 point. This is the tightest spread I’ve seen from CRN in ages, which will be interesting come districts. A faster race will benefit this squad for sure.

SOL Continental

SOL Continental

Comber and Brophy went at it from the gun going out in ~4:50. Brophy keyed off of Comber’s pace until the final stretch when he took the league and grabbed his second league title in a time of 15:08 to Comber’s 15:12!! These guys are absolutely rolling right now, which is incredible to see. They’ll be close to the 15 minute barrier next weekend when you add in Marston, Power, and Webb into the mix.

CB West grabbed the team title with Rock Fortna leading the pack in 16:08. They’re 5^th man was 16:55, 6 seconds slower than PB’s 5^th man and quite a bit behind CRN’s.

If we combine the three SOL races here’s what we’re looking at:

** Since there are no decimal points, I gave all ties to go to CRN, PB, or CB West Runners to make sure that the three biggest teams were getting the same treatment. 

Brophy – 1

Comber -2

Webb – 3 PB

Arita – 4 CRN

Hanna – 5

Fortna – 6 CBW

Alek Sauer – 7 PB

McManamin – 8

Sands – 9

Maguire – 10

Davies – 11 CBW

Griswold – 12 CRN

Tung – 13

Mays – 14

McDonald – 15 CBW

Shah – 16

Good – 17

Bortman – 18 PB

Collins – 19

Laitman – 20 CRN

Heintz – 21 CRN

Haas – 22 CRN

Marcelis – 23

Wick – 24 PB

Goetz – 25

Ramirez - 26

Iatarolo – 27 CBW

Willing – 28

Tokar – 29 PB

Keller – 30 CRN

McKenry – 31

Gunderson – 32

Desko – 32

Himes – 33

Fortna – 34  CBW

Timm – 35

Mass – 36 CBW

CRN -- 79

PB – 81

CBW – 93 (With Mass at the #2 position (10^th place), which he has been all year CBW would have scored 69 points)

More to come when I get further information!

--ForrestCRN