District 8 Predictions
In District 8, Carrick has become the class of the league. Taylor Allerdice’s move to the WPAIL opened up the door for Carrick to take over. The defending champs are led by individual defending champ Zack Wierzchowski and his brother Ryan Wierzchowski. Both guys have been pretty solid this year and it should be interesting to see if either can work their way into the top 100 or so, a feat nobody from the District achieved a year ago. Carrick dominated this meet in 2013 scoring 15 points and I see it happening again. Last year they were denied a clean sweep because a member of a team with less than 5 guys squeaked in from Perry. However, this year, thanks to graduation and an improved team, I have Carrick taking the top 5 spots in the meet.
Here’s how I see it playing out:
1 R. Weirzchowski Carrick
2 Z. Weirzchowski Carrick
3 Walters Carrick
4 Jester Carrick
5 Warnock Carrick
1. Carrick 15
2. Obama Academy
Good luck to everybody competing out at District 8!
A Little Ranting
I know, I know you’re sick of me ranting. But let me just sneak in another one real quick. Here’s the thing, people may think that I hate the way the state meet is set up because I am so set on a Meet of Champs. That’s actually wrong, I love the way the state meet is set up. It’s a STATE meet, so it should represent all areas of the state and it should represent the different sizes as well. The State meet is a separate meet from the Meet of Champs. I don’t want to replace states, I just want to add another meet to the end of the PA season.
I certainly don’t like the three class system and was against it when they put it in, but that was because we didn’t have a meet of champs in place so we could find out who the best guys were. I don’t mind the talent of the state meet being diluted, if eventually we get to see Molino, Hockenbury and Abert all face off.
No, I actually really like the state meet the way it is set up. If I was in charge there is very, very little I would change. My only real issue, why do we still have a District 8?
There is only one class of District 8 (AAA) and they get 1 team spot and 5 individuals (the minimum amount). There are other districts like this (District 6, District 2 and District 10) and I have no problems with them getting the minimum. Were there probably 10 or so teams in District One better than Wallenpaupack and McDowell last year? Probably. But it’s a state meet and every area deserves fair representation. So District 6, 2 and 10 sent their 7 team runners and 5 individuals to states, competed hard, grabbed a couple medals and were on their merry way.
So what separates District 8? For starters, with Allerdice gone they only had 24 guys finish the 5k at districts last year. I can’t say for sure, but I bet that’s the smallest amount of finishers for any district (and that includes the A and AA levels). So exactly half of the 24 finishers would be assured a spot to states. Is that fair? No, probably not. But that’s still not even my biggest issue. Despite having the ability to send 12 total people to states, only 6 runners actually went and competed. The top 5 guys from the District champs, Carrick (although they ran a full 7 at districts) and 1 individual.
Which means a total of 6 guys (basically enough for one additional team) that could have been at states just didn’t go. And look I’m sure the schools had a good reason for not sending the kids. I’m not going to pretend I know the whole story on who or why or how we ended up with only 6 out of 12 spots being filled, but we still ended up with 6 empty spots at states. Those spots easily could have been used by Bensalem or Dallastown. I know the kids would have wanted to go and I think it’s a safe assumption the school would have been willing to send them if a spot opened up.
And what gets me is there is such an easy solution to this: just combined District 8 with another District (particularly District 7). Now there might be some weird WPIAL rule that I don’t know about that makes this difficult, but it’s not like the PIAA doesn’t pull this kind of thing already. District 5 AA runs with District 6 for a qualifying spot to states. Same goes for District 9 AAA. So would it really be that difficult to make the switch? You can even give the 1 team and 5 individuals that used to belong to District 8 to District 7 (bumping them up from 3 to 4 teams and 15 to 20 individuals).
Allerdice made the switch and it didn’t change much. Ean DiSilvio was a medalist in District 8 and clearly a state caliber athlete. He switched to District 7 and still made it back to states and grabbed another medal. Plus, I would argue the extra exposure and competition of District 7 improved his overall ability and recruitability (which is a word I just invented). This year Allerdice has a few other runners who will be in the hunt for states in the WPIAL. It’s not like because they left District 8 their representation at states disappeared.
Most of the time you hear arguments about who should and shouldn’t go to states, people are throwing out times and places and all that stuff. I don’t really care about that. If you noticed I didn’t once use anything like time or place in my arguments above. Times change from year to year and talent can pop up anywhere. To me it’s simply about fairness. Why are we giving 12 spots to a district that refuses to send 12 runners? Especially considering there is an easy solution to the problem.
Don’t get it twisted, at states I’ll be cheering for the Carrick boys to do well. I’ll be scanning results to see where the Weirzchowski boys finish. I’ll just be missing those 6 other guys I could have been cheering for.
Rant on Jarrett! I can't get past the District meet. What I don't understand is why do teams move forward after competing in their League Championship meet if they didn't place in the top (lets say 4) spots? PIAA states that they exist for the safety, yada, yada, yada of the student athlete. If a runner goes down and gets trampled and injured in any way, I would think the PIAA could be held liable for allowing 54 teams and 373 runners in the varsity race and over (800?) in the Open race. Most Invitational meets throughout the country limit the number of teams in one race to a maximum of 35 for "safety" concerns. D1 has 18 more teams and approx. 120 more runners than the next largest District race. 5 Districts have less than 10 teams and that's not counting D5 and D9 that don't have any AAA teams. *My figures reference AAA Boys.
ReplyDeleteTo highlight some stats/comments that I remember hearing when District 8 was last brought up. Now I can't remember if this is track or XC, or both, but I know that to grab an individual spot, you have to reach a qualifying time. Yes, I know that sounds like track 100%, but if you look at how their track meet works, it shows some stark differences between it and other districts. For a District8 male to get to TF states, he must win AND reach the AA track standard. For the rest, its normal.
ReplyDeleteNow here's how I think this affects XC: I think there is a qualifying time for individuals. I don't know where to find it exactly, but I recall seeing it as 19min for AAA. That means, for anyone outside of the top team, who would normally get a spot, there is a time standard. Now for most people in other districts, this time is so slow that an individual spot is always too fast for it to matter, but for District 8 it comes into play.
I believe this to be true. Sadly, I can't show it in the paperwork anywhere as of now.
1. Allderdice is going to be competing in D8 again this year for XC. They joined the WPIAL as associate members for cross country on a two-year basis. Presumably, when DiSilvio (running at Penn State) graduated they realized they would never have much of a shot to make states in the WPIAL, and decided to go back to the City League for XC.
ReplyDelete2. I can't say I've payed any attention to Carrick, Allderdice, or any other City team this year, but I'd assume that Dice will go out and win that meet. No disrespect to Carrick, but Coach Flynn runs a quality program. He is also aided by the fact that Allderdice is a top-notch high-school. It has a big draw from areas like Squirrel Hill, which are populated with Pittsburgh professionals. Compared to working class/poor schools like Brashear and Carrick or really tough largely black school like Westinghouse, it is much less of a chore to get kids out to run distances (and much more possible for them to afford their shoes). I hope the Carrick guys go out and make it competitive though, and get a ton of guys under that 19:00 mark.
3. "Sean" who posted above is (assuming things haven't changed), completely correct. Any City League individual qualifiers have to run 19:00 or better at the meet. It's a Schenley Park course (same as Central??) so that's a reasonable standard to ensure that kids aren't going to get hurt or injured up at Hershey.
4. The WPIAL (D7) vs. City League (D8) thing is really bizarre -- but here's an explanation. The City League comprises all of the Pittsburgh Public School District High Schools. There were once around 15, now it's down to 6. Back in the day, the City League produced incredible athletes and amazing teams -- think Schenley basketball, Fifth Avenue Basketball, Brashear football, etc. Just a ton of tradition and pride -- oftentimes in places w/o much to cheer for. The WPIAL comprises suburban and rural areas around Pgh. Also steeped in tradition and incredible football. With only 6 City high schools left, the WPIAL accepted some of the more "competitive" City teams 2+ yrs ago as associate members in certain sports. Note that individual teams in D8 could join the WPIAL on a two-year basis, not the entire athletic department. All City schools stayed for football and basketball, but some of the schools with good "olympic" type sports programs tried their luck in the WPIAL, thinking it would give their kids a better chance to compete. Dice chose to take their competitive XC program to the WPIAL, and while they were solid they certainly did not compete with the likes of NA, Lebo, Central, etc. Many of the teams that went to the WPIAL -- Brashear baseball, Dice field hockey -- have gotten crushed by suburban schools. Imagine Brashear's baseball program being in the same section as south powers like Bethel, Baldwin, Lebo, Peters, and USC. So, many City coaches don't want to compete in the WPIAL, fearing that they will consistently finish last in their section. It also would redistribute a state spot from a city school to a more suburban type school. You can imagine the dynamics at play. And you can't blame Dice XC -- they're trying to qualify in WPIAL AAA, which now only has 3 state qualifying teams (leaving some quality squads out in the cold). As for the WPIAL, the are hesitant to push for the City League to merge because quite frankly the City schools are not that competitive in most sports, and I think people are trying to avoid embarrassment -- for better or worse.
5. I know that it sucks, but if you're on this blog you are most likely a suburban white guy with a reasonably comfortable life. If the gravest injustice you have faced thus far in life is not qualifying for the state meet and seeing D8 having to "give up" qualifying spots or watching as some City League kids struggle to a 20:00 time at Hershey, then you've been pretty blessed.
ReplyDelete6. Thank you Etrain for being very fair in your write-up of D8. I'm glad you didn't get mean or make it an attack on the athletes who don't decide the system. That's a mark of your character and ability as a writer.
7. While I agree with your point that DiSilvio could hold his own in D7, to say that Dice didn't lose their representation at states is incorrect. You'll notice they couldn't qualify a team. That's a big loss for a program -- taking a team to states is obviously a very big deal and I'm sure that's why their electing to go back to D8.
ReplyDeleteThank you for to all of you for bringing some light to this situation. As I mentioned in my post, I won't pretend I have the whole story. It's very helpful to have people get involve with real knowledge of the situation.
ReplyDeleteIncreasing understanding is the best way to decrease negative and hurtful comments from those on the other side of things.
I'm glad you guys could help me out here and help give a more clear picture of the situation at hand.