Despite losing the reigning state champ in Ryan Gil, North Allegheny was still among the contenders to compete for the 2011 State Title. They returned their next five runners from states behind Gil including state medalist and new title contender Logan Steiner. However, competition was coming from all over. O’Hara, who had been third at states the previous season, returned a slew of up and coming young talent. Mount Lebanon, another WPIAL rival for the Tigers, returned their top three and five of their top six, including state medalist and 4:12 miler Alex Moran.
At the team’s opening meet of the season, Lebo bested North Allegheny by 16 points and Alex Moran beat Logan Steiner by 20 seconds to set the tone for the meet out front. Lebo’s top three all finished in the top 16 overall, cementing the victory and securing them PA #1 status in the next round of coach’s polls. Lawtin Tellin and Kevin Tramaglini, the team’s 2-3 punch, were making a name for themselves as the best 2-3 in the state. The bright spot for North Allegheny was they felt they had the depth to stay competitive: their fifth man was a freshman named Matt McGoey who placed 29th overall in the deep field.
As the season progressed, the gap between Lebo and North Allegheny only seemed to grow in the media. Lebo dominated the Slippery Rock Invitational, scoring 29 points without any of their top three. At Pre States, Lebo was edged out by Cardinal O’Hara 79 to 85, but placed three in the top 15 and 6 in the top 30. The state title race had become a two team conversation between the defending PCL champs and the upstart team from the WPIAL. Meanwhile, North Allegheny continued to stay low key and continued to be ignored.
The long awaited Tri State meet on October 20th would essentially be a WPIAL preview. Fans were intrigued to see how realistic it was that the increasingly historic North Allegheny streak would be stopped at six in a week’s time. The early signs were good.
Lebo took down NA by a score of 76-90, continuing their successful season and cementing their status as favorite for the district title. The top three delivered again with three in the top 17, but Lebo also had impressive showings by their 4-5 runners who each placed in the top 25. The depth advantage that North Allegheny had shown earlier in the season had been erased, and it appeared the front running advantage Lebo had boasted all season would continue to hold true.
A week later the teams traveled back to Cooper’s Lake with all eyes on Mount Lebanon. This was it, the moment the dynasty would finally begin to crumble. However, when the teams arrived at Cooper’s Lake they were greeted by the sloppiest conditions of the decade. In the AA race, Quaker Valley’s LJ Westwood, who had opened the season running 15:50 at RWB, managed only an18:08. It was clear that times were out the window, the only meaningful numbers to each team would be the final standings.
When the race began, Logan Steiner repeated his front running style from a year ago and charged to the lead. However, after leading through in 4:54 a year ago, conditions were so sloppy he managed only a 5:13 to begin. Even at that pace, he opened up about a two-second gap on the field back to Baldwin’s Andrew Kuchta and Pittsburgh Central Catholic’s Mike Runco. Steiner also held a four-second lead over Lebo front-runner Alex Moran, crucial points in the team battle.
But more importantly, Tyler Nictora, Tim Appman and Mike Meehan had all blasted off into the top 15 off the start while Tellin and Tramaglini were out in 16th and 29th respectively. In conditions like these, it seemed likely that NA’s front runner strategy would be a recipe for disaster and after the brutal front stretch of the course, they would crash and burn the final mile.
The second mile NA continued to hold on, but there were signs of weakness. Steiner had dropped back to third after running his second mile in just 5:37, while Mike Runco and Andrew Kuchta had moved into the two spots ahead of him. Mike Meehan had slipped from 15th to 22nd and Nictora had slipped from 9th to 14th. But whatever loss this caused was more than made up for as Sophomore Cordon Luoco and Freshman Scott Seel began to climb the leader board. North Allegheny now found themselves with five in the top 16 overall. Meanwhile, Lebo was not moving forward, but instead slipping backwards. Pittsburgh Central Catholic had made up substantial ground on Lebo. Tramaglini, who had been so consistent all year, was falling victim to the elements and was the teams #5 man back in 34th place. With a mile to go, NA led 56 to 112 and, barring a massive disaster, would retain their WPIAL championship for at least one more year.
When the final points were tallied it was a jaw dropping 50 to 115 win for the Tigers, while Lebo was almost caught from behind by Pittsburgh CC (122 points) and Kiski (149 points). That was particularly surprising because just a week earlier Lebo had beat the two teams by a combined 409 points. The conditions were horrid enough to cause one Lebo runner to drop out (Scott Westover) and plenty of other top tier runners suffered uncharacteristically poor performances.
But somehow North Allegheny fought all that off. Steiner kicked his way through the slop to beat out Runco and Kuchta while Cordon Luoco and Scott Seel, the youngsters of the group, finished 9th and 10th respectively in the field, the two places directly behind Lebo’s Alex Moran. North Allegheny’s six runners in the top 20 overall was unlike any performance they had produced since 2008 (when they placed five in the top 17). In 2008, North Allegheny took a trip out to Portland for the Nike Cross Nationals Championships.
With a week to go until the state championship, everything seemed to be opening up for O’Hara to grab the first state title for the PCL. After winning Pre States, they had impressive wins over LaSalle at PCLs and Districts and their top five runners were all potential top fifty runners at the state meet. In 2010, they had peaked perfectly and surprised a few teams at states, working their way up to third overall. With an even better team this year, a title seemed very possible.
The top two teams from the previous two state championships, North Allegheny and West Chester Henderson, both won their district meets in impressive fashion and were rapidly gaining momentum and credibility heading into the state meet. And Mount Lebanon, despite the heart break of Districts, had the desire to prove districts was just a fluke of the conditions and that they were still in the title hunt.
O’Hara was the favorite, but with question marks at 6 and 7, one off day suddenly made the state title competition incredibly wide open and North Allegheny, Henderson and Lebo would all be hanging around, chomping at their heels.
North Allegheny felt good about their chances for an upset. They had one of the top runners in the field, Logan Steiner, and an experienced group of returners from last season’s state championships. In addition, they had two of the best young runners in the state in Cordon Luoco and Scott Seel. With momentum and confidence overflowing in the NA locker room, if any team was going to pull off the upset, it appeared as if it would be the Tigers.
Funny thing about the state championships, things are rarely as they appear. The first mile went out pretty quick as usual, with almost 75 runners going out under five minutes. O’Hara’s boys were at the front: their entire top six had cracked five on the opening mile. But there were teams that had been bold enough to match the blistering early pace. North Penn, who was third at the district one championships, was in second at the mile, only three points back. Holy Ghost Prep, another district one qualifying team, was in third place with four runners at five flat or better.
For the second straight year, North Allegheny opted to hang back. At the mile, they were in 6th place, over 100 points off the lead. Logan Steiner was all the way back in 37th place, well back of the leaders. In addition to the top three teams, they also sat behind their two biggest rivals: West Chester Henderson and Mount Lebanon. Running in the 6 and 7 spots for North Allegheny were Luco and Seel, the two youngsters that had been so clutch at Districts. Could they pick off runners the same way they had done the previous week?
After the difficult back hills, the first surprise came when the top runners began to approach the finish. Hatboro Horsham Junior Conner Quinn, teammate to preseason title favorite Sam Hibbs, had taken the lead and it appeared he was on his way to gold. It was the first time a junior had won the AAA state title since 2004. Drew Magaha, the dominant district one champion and 4:07 miler, finished in 6th and Logan Steiner finished one spot ahead of him in 5th. O’Hara’s first man came across the line in 4th, one spot ahead of Steiner. O’Hara next had Senior Mike Bilotta cross in 11th place. It was an impressive 1-2 punch. Alex Moran from Lebo, Tim Appman from NA, Tony Russell from Henderson and Lawtin Tellin from Lebo crossed next for the Pre Meet contenders. After two runners, North Allegheny was still right in the title hunt.
However, Ernie Pitone and Chris Pastore both passed for O’Hara in the top 50 overall runners, before any of the other top teams #3 runners had come by. North Allegheny’s runners finished 5th, 20th, 59th, 93rd and 102nd. Scott Seel finished outside the top five for the Tigers. As just a freshman, he still needed extra maturation and experience. Although it seemed obvious they hadn’t beaten O’Hara, they had matched up well against Mount Lebanon and Henderson. So even if there would not be a gold medal to wear this year, it appeared that a silver was headed in their direction.
When the scores were produced, a wave of shock hit the fans of Hershey and jubilation came from the North Penn tent. The Knights of North Penn, who had been state champions in 2007 and 2008, had won the AAA state title on a sixth man tiebreaker over Cardinal O’Hara. In third, 13 points away from a title, was North Allegheny.
North Penn had qualified for states in both 2009 and 2010 after second place finishes at Districts, but both times underachieved at states. They had a habit of going out a bit over their heads and struggling to hold on in the back hills. The strength of the team seemed to be on the speedy surface of Lehigh rather than the true rugged cross country terrain of Hershey. So when North Penn finished third at Districts, most people completely wrote them out of the state title conversation.
Even watching the race, it didn’t appear that North Penn was in a position to win. Jack Macauley, their #1 runner, finished 17th, behind the top two O’Hara runners. Ernie Pitone finished ahead of Chris Trimble in a battle of third men and then Chris Pastore for O’Hara finished ahead of Ryan Grace by a decent margin. Yet Cross Country is scored to five men (and apparently sometimes six) and a big day from sophomore Matt Molloy was enough to swing the title race to the Knights. Hunter Hill, the 6th man for North Penn, finished 13 seconds ahead of Christian Ostrowski, the 6th man for O’Hara, award the tiebreaker and the state golds to North Penn.
The difference might have been experience. North Penn had essentially brought their same team the year before and finished a disappointing 12th. But when all the runners returned the next year, they were a year wiser and a year more experienced. In the end, it made all the difference. In one of the most wide-open state championships in state history, North Penn hoisted the trophy.
North Allegheny had to be frustrated after the race. Their best day likely would have made them state champions, but instead they had to settle for third. That frustration motivated the team to continue to training and go to the Nike Regional championships, hoping for a repeat of their magical 2008 run. Although they didn’t punch a ticket to Oregon, North Allegheny was handily the top PA team, beating out the reigning state champs by 282 points.
It was a positive note to end on for the North Allegheny XC team, but it was also a moment to realize that four of their top five runners from states, including their top three, were graduating that June. Meanwhile, North Penn was coming off it’s third title in five years, returning five of their top seven guys. West Chester Henderson, who had won three District One Championships in a row, was returning a significant portion of their varsity as well. And lastly, Cardinal O’Hara, the most motivated team in the state, was returning four of their top five runners from the 2011 heartbreak.
For most the question wasn’t can North Allegheny compete for the 2012 state title, the question was, can the Tigers even stay relevant on the PA scene?
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