Hibernation is Over

By Jarrett Felix

With the indoor season officially behind us (unless you are a professional competing in Portland this weekend), I thought it may be a good idea to remind you about a couple athletes who didn’t throw down on the 200m oval this winter. In the state of PA, there are a variety of schools who focus purely on the outdoor season. In fact, I’d argue unless you are a Philly area kid, indoor track doesn’t even feel like a real season. So we turn to the big boy track in spring time and see who will likely be returning to the front page of track blogs across the state in the coming months.

“A” XC Talent

We did see studs like Cooper Leslie, Domenic Peretta, Tristan Forsythe and Will Loevner prominently featured in the PSU results this year, but many of the top small school competitors were noticeably absent from the final standings. The individual champion in A, Griffin Mackey, and his up and coming teammate Ben Clouse both were pretty quiet during the cold months after a long XC season that both runners finished a bit banged up. With a few months to keep things low key and recover, this dynamic duo should be ready to reemerge from their cocoon this spring. Mackey was a monster last year as a sophomore, running in the low 4:20s and low 9:20s on the track. Clouse didn’t shine as brightly as his teammate last spring, but this past fall he proved he was on an entirely different plane, competing admirably at WPIALs and Paul Short before suffering an unfortunately timed injury at the state meet. If he’s healthy, I’d expect some strong marks from him this May.

I’m keeping an eye out for guys like Connor Walsh and Hunter Crawley this spring. The 1600m medal spots seem fairly up for grabs considering only a couple runners return from that event’s finals in AA and Crawley was a state qualifier last spring in that event. He also comes from the lineage of Griffin Molino, the 4:12 1600m man who amassed medals in both the 32 and the 16 last spring. Walsh wasn’t a factor in last year’s state championships for track, but he took a massive leap during XC, becoming a top 5 man in A. He’s also a young, improving star much like each of the other three runners I named (I believe everybody is a junior) and the soph to junior jump tends to work out nicely.

“AA” XC Talent

Remember when Zach Skolnekovich and Matt Kravitz cracked the 16 minute mark at Hershey? They were the first AA runners to ever pull that off … along with state champ Dominic Hockenbury. Kravitz transitions to AAA for the track, where he medaled in the 1600 last spring and ran around 4:17. Technically, Kravitz raced at least one notable indoor race (and so did Mackey I think) where he nearly hit a state qualifying mark in the 3,000, but I think it was clear indoor racing wasn’t tops on his priority list. His XC development and strong indoor 3k, suggest to me he could be a horse in the 16 this year as his speed continues to develop.

Skolnekovich is still developing on the track and has struggled to stand out in a loaded WPIAL AA 3200m scene. Maybe he doesn’t have the raw speed to excel on the track? I doubt it. He showed some excellent finishing speed at states in XC running just in front of my eyes past Kravitz. And he’s a gutsy dude from a great program for developing track stars. When you’re fit, I feel like you can run anything well and QV will get Skolnek fit this spring.

Another name to watch is Bryce Descavish of Central Cambria. I can’t spell his name, but I can tell you he ran in the low 9:20s for 3200m last spring in a loaded AA 3200 and followed that up with a huge run at XC states this year (finishing tops of all runners who qualified with teams). Bryce may have run one or two meets indoors, but no serious efforts that reflect his potential for the outdoor season.

And Bryce flows logically into perhaps my number one sleeper pick for this outdoor season: Will Kachman. The Bedford senior has been a top flight track and cross country runner since his sophomore season, but has been forced into the shadow by the excellent marks of classmate Dominic Hockenbury. Kachman broke 9:20 for 3200m last spring at states and nearly ran down Griffin Molino at Ship. He had perhaps his best XC season of his career this past fall, adding another top 5 finish to his state resume. He dwells out in little known district five so who knows how much competition he will see during the season, but Kachman is a super talent with a lot of upside. Don’t forget about him this spring.

AAA Kids

Most of the big schools run indoors. It’s kind of the way it is. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some noticeable absences this winter.  Obviously there were a variety of guys who raced sparingly during the indoor season that will excel more when they get extended opportunities on the 400m oval, but I tried to stick purely to AAA guys that I didn’t see at all during inside. One that jumps out to me is Mark Provenzo of Franklin Regional. One of the WPIALs biggest break out stars during XC ran some of the quickest 5ks in the state this past fall, crushing the 16 minute barrier on multiple occasions and capping off his season with a state medal. I’m not counting out a similar rise to success in the warm weather.

Jacob Stupak of North Allegheny was a sub 16 man on the Hershey hills and ran 4:19 last year for a state medal in the 1600m. I didn’t see him during the indoor season (or his teammate Sam Blechman, but I did see Migliozzi), but if he’s healthy this kid is a nice sleeper pick in the 1600 (and maybe the 32?). North Allegheny has a knack for peaking their guys perfectly for WPIALs/Outdoor States so don’t be surprised to see a couple Tigers in the mix for more hardware at Shippensburg.

Sean McGinnis of Phoenixville ran 1:55 last spring as part of a breakout season in the event. This fall he continued to shine in XC, finishing in the top 50 at Hershey. That’s some impressive range and should make him effective in the prelim-final style qualifying of districts and states. I think he technically ran a race during the winter (a 400m at Henderson’s outdoor track), but I’m not gonna count that. Also, Phoenixville can coach up the middle distance. They had a killer 4x8 squad in 2008-2009 and have had studs like Tom Timmons compete for big time medals in the middle distances.

Zach Seiger of Red Land suffered a mid season injury to XC, but if he can recover from that in time for a productive spring, Seiger should be a factor in the 3200. He’s one of the best XC runners in the state when at full strength and, although he doesn’t have any incredibly flashy PRs, he has run under 9:30 for 3200m and punched a couple tickets to Shipp. Within the same district, I’m keeping an eye out for Thomas Nicewicz and Morgan Cupp from Mechanicsburg. Not sure if Nicewicz actually graduated this year (he was listed a junior in the outdoor state finals, but that may have been wrong), but he holds a PR of 1:55 from last year and finished 9^th at 800. Cupp is a rapidly improving sophomore who could continue to improve this spring, particularly at 3200m. I think the 32 in District 3 is fairly wide open behind Nate Henderson and I’m excited to see which mid state runners step up to fill the gap.

One more name for you is Joe Espinal of Wilson. The AA XC District 11 Champion has put up marks in the low 4:20s and the 1:55ish range on the track and has been a monster the past two seasons in the middle distance at Wilson. District 11 has continuously improved over the years and looks to be pretty deep again this year with state qualifiers like Alpaugh, Paradise, Slavin and Lapsansky in the mix among others. Khai Samuels medaled at 800m last outdoors so maybe the District 11 streak stays alive with Espinal.

So those are some of my names, who are you guys on the look-out for? Let us know by commenting away!

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