Weekend 10/4/14 Analysis

Sorry for the lack of commenting allowed on the blog for the past 48 hours. I’ve been very busy with races, concerts, and spending time with my parents since I’m on fall break. I think we all need to remember what is appropriate. Talking about runners we need to remember that they are human beings just like us, and although we are behind a screen that we cannot forget the humanity behind out actions. I will not stand for negative language on here towards others. There is fair criticism and this is a place for those comments, but it not a place for insults.

On a happier note: Evan Hatton just made an awesome post about the western meets. I put my own on here, but be sure to check his out as well, since it's probably better than mine haha

Gettysburg XC Invitational

Zach Seiger had a very solid race to finish second to Ryan McGorty in a time of 15:49. I’m not sure what course is like for 5k out at Gettysburg. The college’s 8k course is extremely flat, but there are lots of hills in the area. Either way Seiger gets another strong 5k result in. His teammate Drew Wilkinson continues to look strong with a 16:27 5th place finish, while Nathan Mills finish 11th for Red Land to help them to a second place team finish. I’m not sure what is up with Mechanicsburg. Last season Alex Tmasko was a beast as a freshman, but this season he placed 23^rd in 17:13, but the team has another stud freshman in Morgan Cupp who finished 7^th in 16:33. I hope The two of them can work together, since there is clearly a lot of potential there. Also of note was Coatesville’s top runner, junior, Blake Ettien who placed 9^th and lead the team to a 3^rd place finish

Pittsburgh Central Catholic Invitational

Some really interesting results out at the PCC Invitational that will mix up the rankings quite a bit. Hunter Wharrey runs his first race without Mcgoey to key off of and he is taken down by Jeff Van Kooten by 8 seconds. Van Kooten is clearly getting ready for the championship season and should be a huge threat at the state meet. He finished 15^th last year and is coming off a 3^rd place finish outdoors in the 1600m. Wharrey continues to look strong and is looking to be a top 15 guy the state still with the 16 flat mark. I bet the race went out a little slow, which allowed for the speed of Van Kooten to take over. 

 

Heinauer of North Hills placed 3^rd and continues his campaign at being a state medalist. And just one second behind him was breakout sophomore Griffin Mackey. Mackey has now put himself up with some of the better runners in the state for multiple invitationals. He’s on the sophomore medalist watch list for sure. North Hills has another breakout runner in Killian McNally who placed 5^th in 16:26. He beat out Nick Wolk of Peters Township, of whom I am a big fan, and McNally will be continuing the North Hills legacy next season. Right behind them was Landin Delaney of Winchester Thurston and Elias Graca. Delany has looked very solid all season and should be lock to the state meet out of a tough District 7. Graca opened up very strongly and I bumped him up quite a bit for it, but as I expected the hiller courses in the state get to him. The speed demon should place well at WPIALs. 

Team wise: I wanted to note that NA is started to get some 4-5 guys in Stupak and Migliozzi, which is good to see, but the biggest news is a new freshman Tj Robinson who placed 29^th overall in 17:11. He’ll be a name to watch for. North Hills will be interesting to watch this season as well. They’ve got a strong top 3 (not as amazing as 2010), but they’re a bit lacking in terms of a 4-5. They could be a threat for 3^rd place out of the WPIAL.

Grove City Invitational

Aaron Benka was unable to continue the Grove City Invitational win streak by Grove City runners with a loss to Jake Susalla who finished in a time of 16:08, which Benka ran last season to win the meet. Benka was 10 seconds behind after leading the pack out with teammate Ryan Budnik in 4:52. Budnik faded much harder after reaching the 3200m mark in 10:25, but finished in 16:37 back in 4^th. Susalla has been waiting for a true breakout, but he continues to run solid. The Grove City boys Benka and Budnik need to figure out a way for both of them to race well together, because this is the 3^rd time this season they’ve been~20 seconds apart despite the fact that they’re clearly training together and in very similar shape. Braydon Pyle is coming on strong. He went out 20 seconds slow for 3200 than the lead pack, but worked his way up in the last mile and almost caught Budnik in the final meters. 

Salesianum Invitational

It seems like different teams attend this race every year. Maybe one year we’ll see it blow up and become a huge invitational for many of the top squads in the area. This season we saw Carlisle take to the course and Zach Brehm won the Invitational section in an impressive 16:38. Joe DeAngelo looked good once again in 17:22 for 5^th place. He beat out a recovering Josh Smith from Avon Grove (8^th – 17:31), breakout North Penn runner Shaun Collins (17:26-7^th), and a recovering Ryan Tung (17:33-10^th). Matt Wisner had a bounce back race to place 9^th in 17:31. This is one of the better team races we have seen from Carlisle who has run very well so far this season. 

In the Large School race Casey Comber took the title in 16:44 and he won by a minute and 15 seconds. To harp on the times of him and Brehm the meet record is 16:25 by Jack Macauley from North Penn back in 2012 before he placed 6^th at the state meet. 

Paul Short Run – Boys Brown Race

He’s to the juicy stuff we’ve all been waiting to read: Paul. Short.

I was lucky enough to watch this fantastic race. Colin Abert took it out hard and didn’t look back (or at least I didn’t see him look back once). After a pretty quick first mile of 4:45 Abert continued to roll on the second mile and pushed really hard all the way through the finish. He closed in ~68 seconds for the last 400m. He’s still got a lot of speed to finish a race and honestly I think the course at Lehigh plays perfectly to Abert’s strengths. He loves to get out pretty quick and he’s learned how to race smart (if this were the sophomore year Abert, he would have been out in 4:38 or faster). Lehigh’s course allows him to be a little calmer the second mile and not lose any ground (like the hills of Hershey do) the last 1000m is a net downhill allowing him to really bring it home strong, which he loves to do. 

Molino, Hoey, and Jibb (NY) worked together about 5 seconds back of Abert, while Paul Power went out a bit slower and worked hard the second mile to catch up to the group. He back with this group just after the halfway mark and was leading them with 400m to go, but fell apart towards the end. Power isn’t as quick as the 4:12 1600m man Molino. The hills seem to work towards his advantage. Hoey ran with this group was well and was about two-three seconds behind them with 400m to go, but the dehydration from last week was still affecting him as he fell back by 12-18 seconds from this pack by the end. He’ll have a month and a half to really recover for regionals. His younger brother Josh had the same issue this week. He was running with the 3^rd group until about 800m to go and fell back around 35 seconds over that distance. Despite these issues, Malvern Prep continues to look strong as a team with Wills running 16:24 and Doane right behind him in 16:26. It’s good to see the 4-5 tighten up here and I think they’ll only improve together. But I’ll get into that more on the Top 10 Team’s list.

My man Matt Kravitz killed it this weekend and boy am I stoked. This is what a breakout XC race looks like. Kravitz has run well on the track, but we haven’t seen much from the North Pocono junior in XC. He went out with the second group and his speed showed off well at the end when he was able to out kick everyone other than DE runner Kieran Tuntivate, who is a 4:13 Miler. He’s put his name out there as one of the top 5 to 10 guys in AA. McDevitt has continued to have a really strong season. He’s run fantastic in every invitational and I don’t think he’ll slow down at all before regionals. Another one of my favorite runners came up big this week was Aidan Demko. He had a great sophomore XC campaign, but he’s had injury and sickness issues over the past few seasons, but he’s finally back! 15:40 at Lehigh is no joke and he’s clearly rolling once again for a Hershey squad that’s coming on very strong (teammate Will Sponaugle was 15^th in 15:52). 

Nick Dahl is a BIG kid. Standing at least 6 feet tall this sophomore looked very out of place on the XC course. He looks a bit confused and unsure of how to race. I say this, because I think he’s not racing up to potential. He’s still learning how to race 5k and is a total stud. I can’t see how much better he’ll get once he pulls it all together. Still a very good race for a sophomore. 

Other big races: Simon Smith 13^th place is finally rolling for Towanda after a tough PTXC race; Kevin Lapsansky was 14^th and is really helping out a strong Easton squad (more on them in the Top 10 List); what I’ve been waiting for from CV has finally come to fruition – Yahya Soliman is running with Quinn Wasko. They worked together all race and finished just a second apart for 14^th and 15^th respectively (also who runs a 5k perfectly even these days?? Clearly CV).  This team looked really great with a 49 second spread. I think it will get closer to 35 by districts. Boy is District 3 interesting!! 

Freedom has really fallen apart this season, which is a darn shame, but Quigley is giving a good showing, so watch out for him. Diestelow is still looking to get back into things, but his 16:02 impressed me. Alex Fitch gets in a big race from Liberty and beat out some breakout runners from Prep in Fisher and Pisacano. Loving what I aw from Liam Conway, freshman from Owen J Roberts. I know people on the blog are saying to not put pressure on this young kid, so I’m attempting to avoid that, but still he ran 16:10 at Lehigh as a freshman… in early October… Reiny Barchet ran 16:05 (on a very slow day) in late October. Just saying. Just saying.

Boys White Race:

Gabriel Allgayer looked great from Mercersburg Academy. He went out in just under 5 flat with Degroot-Lutzner, but really pulled away in the last mile to win by 18 seconds. A 15:50 time is no joke for this ‘A’ runner who ran 9:42 as a sophomore. He’s really taken the next step here this season (junior jump anyone?). Kyle Gonoude looked good in 16:11 for 3^rd place. Gonoude always comes on strong at the end of the season, and I think he’ll be running with Allgayer by states. 

I promise lots more to come in the next two days! I’ve been working on this stuff a lot now that I’m home

--ForrestCRN