Other Meets? What Other Meets

By Jarrett Felix

For those of you interested in Carlisle/Foundation recaps, scroll down a post and check out the action. But ...

Believe it or not, there were other meets this weekend. Even if I made basically no mention of them in the past few days. But have no fear, I'll be discussing a few highlights briefly here.

For starters, at Sharpsville Zach Skolnekovich pulled out a strong victory over a field that included a few top WPIAL squads (particularly team champs Norwin) and some solid small school teams. Skolnekovich, who beat Griffin Mackey earlier this season, has been near untouchable in his few performances this season and last year as a sophomore was such a strong XC runner I even took a stab at picking him for state gold in one of my two sets of XC predictions. And guess what? If I have to pick somebody not named Dominic to win the AA title he's my first choice.

Mark Provenzo of Franklin Regional had a nice run of his own, finishing in second of PA runners. He has put together some consistent top pack performances so far in 2015, running near guys like Blechman and the Lebo pack, meaning he would have potentially been a top 10-15 guy at Foundation. He's a sleeper for a medal at stands and top 5 at WPIALs. 

Norwin, Seneca Valley (no Kolor the last two weeks), and Pitts CC (solid at Carlisle, especially through 4) are setting up for an exciting battle for the third and final state qualifying spot in the WPIAL. I was on the Norwin bandwagon in the early season and especially during last year's track season, but they have an uphill battle in store if they want to catch SV. O'Neill and Laughery look excellent so far out front, we will see how the pack develops.

In the match up between D10 A foes, Seneca got the best of Saegertown behind strong runs by the Meyers twins. However, it does look like Saegertown was missing a key contributor in Fleischer would could have made a pretty solid difference bolstering the top three for the 2013 state champs. 

At the Penncrest Invitational, Penncrest took the top two spots with Joseph Angelina and sophomore Avery Lederer leading the way. But then it was the West Chester East show as they took spots 3-8. It was a fairly small meet and it's unclear how much the squad was pushing (particularly Moser), but clearly there is a good pack here. But with the emergence of Owen J Roberts and Spring Ford up at Hershey, East is going to be in a crowded group just to crack the top 10 overall at districts. It should be mayhem at Lehigh.

Samuel Lenze took an impressive win at the Crimson Hawk Invitational, winning by roughly 30 seconds. Keep an eye for him in the WPIAL AA race. Nick Dahl continues to impress, winning his section of the pre NXN NE regional meet. Hopefully that's a preview of a potential national qualifying performance in a few months time. GFS continues to improve as a team behind him. 

Connor McMenamin added a 15:41 to his resume, rolling at Six Flags in NJ. He dominated his race and early word from DJ on my staff says that's a very impressive performance. Considering he seemingly soloed it, that's even better. Curious how he will do in his next performance vs PA boys.

The CRN Invitational featured one of my favorite teams in the state: CB West. While NA and DTW were grabbing headlines at two of the biggest invites of the year, Central Bucks took care of business without their top runner at CRN, beating North in their home invite by a comfortable margin. They added 5 of the top 8 in the JV race including winner Teagan Fortna. CB West doesn't get enough love (and when the team rankings come out, you may be surprised where I slot them).

Even without Rock out front, Brian Mass nearly grabbed the individual title, just barely being edged by Joe Maguire. For Maguire, this is an encouraging bounce back win after a tough run at Briarwood where Mass had him by a decent margin. He also bested Lukas Marcelis and Tucker Desko, a pair of top 15 talents in District One this year. 

Making a big jump back into the spotlight was CB South's Matt Scarpill. The junior finished 4th in 16:16, mixing it up with a variety of Etrain Top 50 types. Scarpill was a super talent as a freshman and after a somewhat disappointing sophomore XC season, quietly made strong improvements on the track. Now, after a slow start to the fall, Scarpill appears to be gaining steam at the right time. He could be a sleeper at Lehigh for Paul Short/Districts because he has some solid track wheels. Neshaminy's soph Rusty Kujdych also continues to improve and could potentially benefit from the move to a flat surface like Lehigh. His 3200m skills last spring were what catapulted him into the discussion of top youngsters to watch in 2015.

Hatboro Horsham has a strong resume of coaching studs and they have had a medalist at states every year for the past decade or so with the exception of 2008. They had at a top 40 finisher that year and two guys sub 16 at districts so it's not like that year was a bust. The point is Horsham knows how to produce talent and has a steak to uphold this year. Watch for Jared Bixler and Matt Allen down the stretch to potentially make a leap. 

I didn't check too carefully in the out of state results, but let me know if I missed any other PA performances. It's been a great season so far and I'm looking forward to what comes next.

And oh yeah, I will be at Paul Short live to cover the action. If you'd like to meet the man behind the blog, it's your chance. Hopefully we can get some excellent coverage and maybe some interviews or videos of some kind as well.