A House Divided

Flash back to 2008. Mark Dennin grabs a big time state title in cross and follows it up with a convincing regionals/nationals stretch run. 3 PA men qualify for nationals, all AAA competitors. The likes of Max Kaulbach of GFS (2nd at NXN before they had individual qualifying spots) and Dan Lowry of LaSalle (12th at Footlocker Regionals) were left home. Both belonged to teams outside of the PIAA.

Indoors the boys had their revenge. Kaulbach stuns title favorites Crits and McNally. Sean Mallon of Archbishop Ryan even sneaks up for 3rd. Then the LaSalle boys pull the DMR upset behind Lowry's brilliant 4:12 anchor. A week later Archbishop Ryan wins a national championship in the DMR (out of the slow heat no less) behind Sean Mallon's 4:14 split.

That outdoors, we went pack to PIAA dominant discussions as soon as the Penn Relays was over (GFS, LaSalle and Ryan were the top 3 PA squads in the DM, Finucane top PA miler). Crits out kicks Hobart and Kareis to win a state title with a thrilling kick in 4:11. Dennin dominates the 32 at states.

Meanwhile we forget all about the likes of Mallon and Lowry and Kaulbach. Kaulbach breaks 9 a couple times for 3200m equivalent with barely any week to week competition and runs a 4:11 equivalent for 1500m. Brian Fulton of Malvern Prep runs a 1:52.77 relatively uncontested, a mark which, combined with his kick, would have put him right in the hunt with sophomore Tom Mallon for the 800 title, cutting a brilliant legacy short a year. Dan Lowry ran a 4:12 equivalent in the mile at the PA distance festival with no body else in sight when he crossed the finish line.

Imagine a Sean Mallon, Dan Lowry, Max Kaulbach, Nick Crits, TJ Hobart, Finucane and Greg Kareis state meet 1600m! We were robbed honestly. We likely would have had another sub 4:10 guy 3 years earlier and Craig Miller likely wouldn't have held his record as long as he did.

We still don't have a perfect system (a true meet of champions meet, like New Jersey) and in many ways we are moving farther away from this goal (moving to 3 classes in XC) but in 2009 at least we got the PCL involved in the proceedings.

Can you imagine how these last 6 years would have played out without the PCL? It's a drastically different world. There is no epic Henderson-Ohara dual at states: we only see the duo go head to head at regionals at Nationals. It completely changes the great legacy and rivalry. There is likely no Henderson vs Ohara two mile, possibly a more conservative state run by Tony Russell, who knows Henderson only needs to beat a young NA squad and a good CRN squad that can't compete with Henderson's depth after their top 3. Maybe Russell only wins one title without Ohara breathing down his neck? Who knows?

The PCL had 2 medalists it's first year (24th and 25th) and the 2nd place team (LaSalle) who beat NA for that podium spot. Keep in mind, because of their one point loss to NA a devastated North Allegheny team went to NXN and grabbed a 12th place finish at Nationals. Without the PCL that doesn't happen. (Keep in mind most years NA doesn't even choose to go to NXN preferring not to extend their season and risk ending on a sour note)

Every year the PCL has been around they have had a top 3 team in the state and multiple state medalists. We had 5 medalists and two top 5 teams in 2012 (and as I've argued in the past, they could have had two top 3 teams). Ohara by themselves has had Garrity, Savage (2x), Billotta, Pitone, James (2x), and Smart on the medal stand with 2 more guys (Sachetti and Belfatto) finishing in the top 30. LaSalle has produced 3 top 5 teams and one of the tightest spreads in state history in 2009. St Joes Prep and Father Judge gave us state medalists and Bonner on the AA level helped out as well. Even teams like Archbishop Wood have contributed strong runners in Tim Flanagan and Chris Muldoon. The epic Kehl vs Kellar battle was thanks to the PCL.

But we are still missing out. We already missed out on Ben Ritz, Aziz and Wistar at various outdoor state meets. And going forward we won't see Malvern Prep vs. NA, Hoey vs. Brophy and Nick Dahl vs. Scarpill who whichever youngster evolves into a champ by 2016-2017. There will be no Molino vs. Hockenbury vs. Abert this fall.

After seeing these great years of the PCL that include a state champ (Coyle) and a slew of the biggest close seconds in state history (Ohara twice, Kehl) as well as a footlocker finalist who got away (Phil Wood) and the greatest rivalry of the decade (Ohara vs Henderson) and another pretty fun rivalry (Coyle and Huemmler) what other memories have we missed out on? What other rivalries, diving finishes, and tie breakers have we been missing? Which ones will we miss out on in the future?

Isn't it possible Will Kachman and Sam Webb could have been diving for the finish line at states this fall? NA could have been working a 6th man tie breaker against Malvern Prep?

So why don't we have a meet of champions? Honestly how hard could this really be? I'm sure money is an issue (it's always an issue, and it's not going away) but think about it. There's a huge gap from states to nationals and regionals. Our best kids have to train during that period if they want to make it to the big meets. We want our state represented by the best we have to offer. But a lot of our best guys and teams are skipping Nats to recover, another month of training by yourself seems horrid. I don't blame guys like Todaro for shutting it down.

But stick a meet of champs in there 2 weeks after states, bring the best teams and best runners, and suddenly it's only two weeks of extra training for a shot at nationals. Not too bad at all. I'm even cool with putting the state title course somewhere quick. Lehigh isn't central to the state, but a similar type design makes sense. Keep everybody's legs a little fresher for Nats and such if people are concerned about it. I think you could get a real solid course at Big Spring where we ran our regional championships in XC in college. Carlisle is a nice course too, a bit of tightness and tight turns but spectator friendly and a reasonable course in difficulty. Both are fairly centrally located and have held big meets in the past.

The best qualifying system would certainly be a hot topic of debate. It's very, very difficult to do this on any sort of objective level. Especially when you are trying to keep the meet relatively small.

We would probably want something around 15-20 teams. So I would think something like: the top 2 schools at independent champs get an auto, the top 2 A, top 3 AA, and top 5 AAA. That gets you to 12. You fill the last 3-8 spots with some combination of the following factors: the PA milesplit rankings, a coaches poll, the merged state results, results from the big meets like Paul Short, Carlise, Pre States, and the District Championship meets.

The last spots would be that dreaded word: arbitrary. But too be fair that's how the last spots at NXN are decided. That's how the last spots at NCAAs are decided. So it's not unprecedented.

If you want to get crazy you could be fancy and say: winners of Carlisle, Paul Short and Pre States get auto bids to MoC as well and then that team is not included in the auto bid process of states. This is a cool idea (imagine the crazy environment around these meets) but isn't fair to small schools with low budgets (although this is a disadvantage in plenty of other ways that we haven't/can't account for) and doesn't encourage schools to peak properly.

You could say anybody who beat one of the teams that makes states as an auto bid at districts also goes to MoC (for example Conestoga last year with CRN) but I'm not sure how I feel about this rule either.

I think arbitrary might not be all bad. Think about it, arbitrary would have gotten 2012 LaSalle into the state meet with 7 guys instead of 5 and would have gotten Altoona there as well in 2013. There can be advantages as long as you have an unbias decision maker (very, very difficult to obtain believe it or not).

As for individuals, this is pretty simple in my eyes. You invite the top 3 individuals from each A and AA district who aren't a MoC qualified team. Top 5 for AAA in each district (you can also change these to be more district size specific like district 8 AAA only gets top 1 auto to MoC or something) Then take the top 10 non team qualifiers from the independent league, the top 15 guys from A and AA states that aren't qualified from Districts or teams and the top 20 from AAA who fit the same criteria. That gets you something like 165ish runners (give or take, like I said you can play with the numbers to get a fit you like). With 18ish teams, you are looking at a field of 250-300 runners (again numbers can vary) which is a pretty reasonable number for any course (2008 states had 285 finishers in AAA with 24 teams, 2013 had around 220 finishers with 19 teams in AAA).

I think this is a worthwhile goal to pursue. You have this meet in addition to state champs. You hand out state titles at one meet and you hand out pride and honor at the other. I see no problems with that, I see only solutions and excitement.


As for an outdoor track meet of champs, that's just about the easiest thing ever. First off Coach Kelly would 100% host it. Second off, you just make a qualifying time. It's track. Maybe throw some auto bids to state champs and boom. You got yourself a track MoC.

Think about it PIAA. I'm just saying.