The Etrain 11: WiT beyond Measure ...

by Jarrett Felix

For almost a decade, my brain has been a sponge for track and field knowledge. I’ve memorized countless times, places and splits while analyzing and overanalyzing seemingly trivial results. Running my blogs has become something between an obsession and an addiction. I literally tried to quit and couldn’t do it. Which implies perhaps a clinical need for psychiatric help. This outlandish hobby made me an ideal candidate for plucking a camouflaged sleeper from the clutter of statistics.

 

However, up until recently, one of the best teams in the state was lurking just outside my aforementioned far-reaching peripheral vision. If you had asked me where Winchester Thurston High School was located, I probably would have guessed Maryland. During the winter of 2014, I noticed the school for the first time. Sophomore Will Loevner had run 8:55.95 for 3,000m at the TSTCA Indoor Championships and secured himself a spot at the indoor state championships at Penn State. Reviewing Will’s stats, I saw that he had placed in the 60s at A states the previous fall and, if I’m being perfectly honest, I initially thought that his time was a product of a lap counting error at the wacky Edinboro facility. Knowing what I know now, it’s easy to see how very wrong I was. Of course it wouldn’t be the last time I underestimated this team.

The following outdoor season, Will Loevner continued to have success, but he also gained a prominent running mate: Junior Landin Delaney. Loevner dropped a strong 9:36 at Butler and Delaney followed with a 9:37 at Baldwin, setting the pair up among the favorites in a loaded AA WPIAL championship race. Delaney ended up grabbing the gold and Loevner earned bronze as both runners beat proven XC stud Shawn Hilverding from Waynesburg and Delaney outdueled a familiar name: Domenic Peretta. When the two underclassmen finished off their seasons with a pair of PRs at the state meet (9:31 and 9:35 for 3^rd and 5^th), it was clear the Winchester Thurston boys were legitimate state caliber runners.

But how would their track success translate to the trails? Delaney and Loevner were two of the top returners for a WT squad that returned five of their six runners that earned the third and final state qualifying spot for states in the A WPIAL championship. They had been a decent team during the fall of 2013, but there was a long list of reasons to question the team’s ability to compete for a podium finish at Hershey. For starters, they graduated a key runner in Robert Lincoln and filling his slot would be tricky. Depth will always be an issue at a small school so every body was crucial. In addition, the WPIAL championships in A were setting up to be a virtual state championship preview with top state title contenders Avonworth and Sewickley Academy looming large.

One of the keys to turning the tide would be Ben Littman. As a freshman, he had finished as the team’s top runner at the WPIAL championships, racing to 13^th overall. On the track, he ran an early season 10:09 in the 3200m before struggling to recapture that magic. With team expectations soaring, the rising sophomore would be a make or break piece in Winchester’s pursuit of excellence.

The fall started with the blazing fast Red, White & Blue meet where all of the top WPIAL schools came to compete. WT got a good luck at its competition that included Sacred Heart, Avonworth and A meet champions Sewickley Academy. Unfortunately, the boys from Thurston fielded just four runners : neither Loevner nor Littman were involved in the scoring. The next meet, at Slippery Rock, the squad’s much anticipated big three finally emerged and grabbed 3 of the top 24 spots in the AAA race. But their 4-5 punch was back a ways in the loaded field and the team was little more than an afterthought in the results.

From this meet on, the team seemed scattered to say the least. Every week it seemed like a new face was missing from the results. While teams like Avonworth and Sewickley were winning important invitationals and finding their stride, it seemed like Winchester Thurston was struggling to stay afloat. However, this stretch did feature a positive takeaway: the emergence of freshman Tristan Forsythe, who ran a solid 18:10 at the Pittsburgh Central Catholic Invitational.

The team needed to improve their depth and Forsythe was therefore an encouraging addition. As an 8^th grader, Tristan had clocked a 10:58 and 4:54 in a double gold performance at the Mars Junior High Track and Field Invitational. He had also earned a silver and gold medal in a pair of USATF XC Championships. His potential for a breakout race had flown under the radar in recent analysis, but at WPIALs his talents would be on full display.

As WPIALs approached injuries, sickness and a lack of depth had pushed Winchester Thurston further and further down the rankings and etrain’s pre-race predictions slotted them all the squad back in 5^th place, well out of qualifying contention. Sewickley, Avonworth, Sacred Heart and sleeper Greensburg Central Catholic stole most of the pre meet headlines. But as the race began, Winchester Thurston quickly moved into a strong position. Loevner looked great: mixing it up in the top pack and his crew of Delaney and Littman were rolling along not far behind. As the race continued the team’s star freshman began to shine. Forsythe rolled through the second part of the course and crossed the line in 12^th place overall … as the team’s 4^th man. Although their 5^th man finished almost two minutes behind Forsythe, freshman Gordon Pollack ran a gutsy race to finish in the top third of the race and seal the deal on the team’s epic day. The killer top 4 and Pollack’s efforts were enough to help WT take 2^nd overall and go back to the state championships, with dreams of a podium finish suddenly seeming realistic.

The day slowly ticked away towards the state championship meet at Hershey as Winchester Thurston continued to get healthier and more confident. They had gone toe to toe with one of the early state title favorites, Sewickley Academy, at WPIALs and were hopeful they could erase the 20 point gap at Parkview. They were still an under the radar contender and concerns were still swirling about their youth and questionable depth. But what few outside the team knew was that WT was preparing to unleash a secret weapon on the rest of the field on race day.

Sophomore Shaun Hay had suffered a stress fracture in early September and was forced to watch from the sidelines as his teammates raced and earned their ticket to states. Hay had been on crutches the week prior to WPIALs and basically returned to running at the same moment the team was finishing their qualifying procedure. When the gun was sounding at Hershey Parkview, Hay was nine days back into running. But he was a real talent and perhaps the right variable to add to a state title equation. When the final results were tabulated, this proved to be an understatement to say the least.

Winchester Thurston executed a dominate race at Hershey, scoring 65 points and winning by 46. Loevner, Littman and Delaney improved by 63 spots, 86 spots and 52 spots respectively from last year’s championship meet. According to milesplit, both Loevner and Littman (and technically Hay) ran their fastest times of the season at the difficult Hershey course. The team’s entire top five ended up in the top fifty overall, a truly impressive achievement and in Hay’s first race of the year he finished 43^rd in the state.

The power of Hay’s return cannot be undersold. If you remove him from the race, by my math WT ends up finishing tied for 4^th with Elk Lake and, ultimately, falling to 5^th place on the 6^th man tiebreaker. That’s amazing considering that without Hay, WT still would have put four guys in front of Elk Lake’s #1. That is just a reminder of the importance of having a full team effort.

With state golds around their neck, it became hard for even casual fans to ignore the prowess of Winchester Thurston. But as their spring track season closes, I think few realize just how impress this team has been this year. Obviously when all things came together during the fall, the team was killer on the A level. However, when looking at combined scores (which undervalue WT’s performance because they were in a less deep, slower race) the squad would have finished 16^th overall in a meet of champions type set up, edging out District 3 Champ Hempfield, Carlisle, Canon-McMillan and others.

And this squad continued to improve during the track season. Loevner got things cooking early when he ran 9:06-8:49-8:50 in the 3k, placing in the top two of each race against loaded TSTCA fields that included names like McGoey, Wharrey and Gunzenhauser. Then, during his third 3k in 3 weeks, Will clocked a PR of 8:48.26 for 9^th at the state meet, clipping on the heels of old rivals Wharrey and Gunzenhauser as well as future sub 9 man Paul Power. All four runners finished with 0.31 seconds of one another.

Indoors was fairly quiet for the rest of the squad (although Forsythe ran a strong 4:34 mile for 7^th in the freshman race at nationals), but as Spring rolled around it became clear that Winchester Thurston had a crowded locker room. PIAA rules apparently state that each team can enter a maximum of three individuals per event at the district championships, even if more runners have qualified[1]. That meant at least one of the big five on Winchester’s squad was going to be scrambling for a new favorite event.

WT entered the WPIAL qualifiers with a slew of excellent 3200m runners. Loevner had already clocked 9:36 and the aforementioned 8:48. Delaney ran a 9:52 but also boasted a 9:35 PR from a year ago during crunch time. Plus, he was the defending district champ. Shaun Hay, now recovered from his injury, ran an impressive 9:36 of his own at the Baldwin Invitational. Throw in Ben Littman, who was 10^th at states during XC and had run 9:44 on the year, and there were four guys more than capable of not only qualifying for the state championships, but competing for medals at Shippensburg (without counting Forsythe’s potential to move up and do damage as well).

This is a problem we normally associate with all time great squads like 2007 Coatesville or 2014 West Chester Henderson, but somehow the incredible depth and talent of the Thurston boys slipped through the cracks. At the qualifiers, it was senior Landin Delaney, the man who had won a district title in the 3200m roughly 12 months earlier, who stepped aside to make way for his teammates in the 3200m. WT also set themselves up to qualify for states in the 4x800m (and be one of the top contenders in the event) behind Delaney, Forsythe, Hay and Littman, but a DQ left them out of the picture. Fortunately, each of their five individuals made it through the qualifiers without much trouble in their desired events.

Soon, as the team trekked to Baldwin, the goal would be on the next round of qualifying. This time, it was a place at the state championship that was on the line. Forsythe and Delaney started things off wonderfully in the 1600m. Tristan ran a PR of 4:27.11 to finish second to only Domenic Peretta’s record setting victory. Delaney clocked his own person best, placing fourth in 4:28.45. Then, the trio of Loevner, Hay and Littman streaked to a 4-5-7 finish in the incredibly loaded 3200m, all under the SQS. Thurston was sending five individuals to the state championship a mark that almost no team has equaled at any level.

Although states finished with just one medalist (Will Loevner finished 8^th in a new PR of 9:30), Winchester Thurston ends the spring as one of the strongest top fives we have ever seen. They packed the distance events in the largest AA district in the state and finished 2015 with some impressive results against top tier competition across all different divisions. And, oh yeah, they return four of that top five next year as they look to establish a tradition of greatness at WT.

Congrats on a fantastic season boys and best of luck next year.

 

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[1] Pardon me, I need to rant. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why this is a smart rule. I would understand if there was not a qualifying system in place, but there is! Why should teams be punished for being good? Why should individuals be punished for being on good teams? Why are there additional rules in place to make it even more difficult to assemble the best possible field for a state championship? Just why? If someone has a strong answer, I’d be curious to hear the other side of this point because I’m sure there is one.