PIAA 4x800m Recap

by Jarrett Felix

AA
It's been a long road to this moment for Seneca. Led by the very talented Myers twins, Seneca has been a dangerous team on the state level in both XC and track for a few years in a row. However, there were growing pains at the state level with a young team. But this season, Seneca put together one of their best finishes at the state championship in cross. And now they are state champions in the 4x8. They looked extremely dominate in this race from prelims through finals. Their time of 7:51.07 is one of the fastest in AA history, but what makes things more interesting to me is the fact that this relay is made up of 4 juniors. Could they take a shot at the long standing AA record of 7:44.44 next year?

Shout out to Wyomissing who backed up their stat title with a runner-up finish, giving Seneca the best run of anyone. Their sophomore anchor, Joe Cullen, really rose to the occasion with a 1:54 split and I was impressed with their third leg, Keim, who ran a strong 2:01 to keep them in the race.

The anchor legs must have been fairly crazy across the board as five teams ended up cracking 8 minutes on race day. Seneca's anchor (Donovan Myers) ran about 1:54 according to PCN, Cullen ran 1:54 and Camp Hill's Cooper Leslie split around 1:53.8. That likely means Avonworth's anchor and Harbor Creek's anchor down around that range as well (7:57 times for both of those squads, just ahead of Camp Hill).

AAA
While many expected State College to defend their indoor title at Shippensburg, I think few expected them to dominate quite like they did on race day. The Little Lions got a brilliant lead off leg from Owen Wing (1:57 low) just a day after he clocked a big 1:56 PR in the prelims. Wing had to run wide for a decent chunk of the race, but still handed off at the front of the pack, setting up Nick Feffer to roll through the race. From there, it was pretty much over, although Rock Fortna gave a strong challenge on leg two. Feffer's final split (1:52 high) broke things open and Degleris and Milligan added then PR splits of 1:54 and 1:52 low.

The 7:37.25 sits behind only CB South and Wissahickon on the all time list and smashes their own state record. They accomplished this despite the fact that the back half of their relay was doubling/tripling. Apparently, the plan is for SC to extend their season and take one more shot at a fresh run at Nationals. It's definitely possible that the team could finish under the 7:33 state record with proper competition, especially if Alex Milligan bottles whatever magic he had in that 1600 this weekend (we will get to that). However, extending things out to nationals hasn't always been a successful strategy for PA teams as the extra three weeks or so of training is tough on anyone.

Despite State College's thrilling assault on the clock, the most exciting part of this race was the battle for second. Abington-CB West-Pennridge-North Penn-CR North divided up spots 2 through 6 in a span of just 2.45 seconds. It was an incredible run by Abington who appeared to be dead in the water after barely making the finals in Fridays prelims. Well, apparently they had a baton drop in the trials that they were able to overcome just to get to Saturday. Sometimes events like that can put things in perspective and make you truly appreciate the opportunity to compete in the finals. For Abington, they took full advantage of their opportunity.

In an epic rematch on the final straightaway of the indoor state championships, Abington and CB West came head to head in a sprint for the silver medals. It was the same two anchor legs as well as sophomore Jake Claricurzio battled Keion Broadus all the way to the line, both runners toppling at the finish. They finished in the exact same time to the thousands but, this time, Abington flipped the script on their indoor rivals and finished just ahead of West.

Pennridge, the District One champs, grabbed another top 5 medal at states. They finished near the top of the podium in 2012, 2014, 2015 and now 2016. Although they had higher hopes for this season, based on a quick look at the broadcast, it's possible they posted their 7:45 finishing time without their star Tucker Desko. It looked like Austin Howell may have run anchor and, since Desko didn't run the open 800 Saturday afternoon, he may have been hobbled. He reportedly had his anchor taped up at districts and that could have been an issue on race day. Regardless, it looks like Howell anchored in about 1:53 for the Pennridge boys and, as a junior who also boasts a 48 low split from Penn Relays, the kid could have a big future.

North Penn comes through again as a consistent 4x8 powerhouse. Based on my personal research this is at least the 13th different year North Penn has put up a 4x8 sub 7:47. My list that I've been compiling of all the sub 7:47 relays in PA history is currently just 85 teams deep, meaning North Penn accounts for roughly 20% of the teams on the list! That's crazy. I think this squad is fairly young too (certainly on the distance side) and so they should be a fun team to watch next year and even maybe during XC for the first time since their 2011 state title run.

Also in the medals were CR North, LaSalle and North Allegheny, who all had terrific seasons. This was an excellent race for North who has had quite the impressive run of dropping times during the fall, winter and spring. They peaked perfectly to escape D1 in XC, then finished 5th at states. They snuck into the indoor state championships as one of the last teams in for the 4x8 and then got on the medal stand. Now they roll through the final stretch of the season, finishing it off with a 7:46 that just misses what I believe was their school record run in 2010 (7:46.16).

LaSalle was a team I doubted heading into these championships. They decided to sacrifice all their individual goals for a chance at a top time in the relay. It was a selfless decision, especially for senior leader Patrick Grant who had successes at both the 1600 and the 800 this spring. I wasn't sure how they would handle the big stage, but they pulled through impressively with a 7:50.62. I'd have to see splits to say anything definitely, but I think Grant had one of his best ever races on the anchor leg for this team. Strong way to end his career.

Lastly, how about the North Allegheny Tigers? The WPIAL's most famous team decided to run a completely fresh squad at states (i.e. no Stupak, no Migliozzi). And, it was a squad filled with underclassmen. All four of their legs return including a 1:55 leg from junior Caleb Schaelchlin and a 1:57 split from sophomore Zach Ehling. Remember Ehling ran 1:56 low in the open 800 at the district 7 championships.

NA had a really strong weekend (I believe they finished 3rd in the team standings with 29 points, many years that score would be truly notable, but this year it was lost in the madness of the champions) and it comes a year after they graduated 3 absolute studs in McGoey, Wharrey and Seel. You just can't stop these guys.

So I've been working very diligently to find splits and relay info for all these squads, but I've been struggling a bit. So I need help from all of you. If you don't mind, please either comment, email (jarrettfelix1130@gmail.com), or direct message (@jfetrain11) us with order and split information for your teams. A huge, huge thank you to those who have already proved this information.

As an alternative, if someone can provide a reasonably high quality video of the two races, I will split all the teams by hand like I have for the past couple state championships. I'm willing to help the cause however possible.

As always, we will share the information we received, but we will keep who provided it to us anonymous unless otherwise specified. Plus we love hearing from fans! You guys are what make the blog go. So don't be shy, help the greater running community and get involved in the site! If you don't reach out, I'll probably bother you anyway with emails, tweets, etc. so just help everyone out now and save yourselves some trouble.

Here's what I've got so far (spoiler alert: it's not that much):

AA
Seneca: Phoenix Myers '17, Gabe Jarema '17, Adam Hanes '17, Donovan Myers '17 1:54
Wyomissing: Jack DiCintio '16 2:01.3, Heriberto Colon '16  1:57.3, Austin Keim '18 2:01.3, Joe Cullen '18 1:54.6
Habor Creek: x, x, x, Dan Kuhn '16
Camp Hill: (Blake Behney '16, Ian Gabig '17, Dan Shank '17, Cooper Leslie '16 1:53.8) - order not specified

AAA
State College: Owen Wing '17 1:57.17, Nick Feffer '17 1:52.85, Anthony Degleris '16 1:54.75, Alex Milligan '16 1:52.30
Abington: Jake Good '16, Cameron Mitchell '18, Josh Coleman (?) '18, Keion Broadus '16
CB West: Carter Zerweck '16 1:57.3, Rock Fortna 1:53.9 '16, Luke Fehrman '19 1:59.0, Jake Claricurzio '18 1:53.8
Pennridge: Soloman Araneta '16, Matt Eissler '19, Jeff Espinal '16, Austin Howell '17 1:53
CR North: Bryan Keller '17 1:56.1, Matt Haldeman '16 1:57.6, Sam Early '18 1:58.5, Ben Heintz '16 1:54.1
North Allegheny: Bobby Lutz '17 1:58, Caleb Schaelchlin '17 1:55.5, Christian Parreaguirre '17 1:59, Zach Ehling '18 1:57.5

That's all I've got at the moment and not all of it is even official, so hit us up!