State Championship Recap: The Team Championship

by Jarrett Felix

Hello everyone. Lovely to see you all again. It was definitely a bit sad yesterday missing what I personally feel was one of the greatest state championships of the decade (it was #10 for me in my "career"). Of course, I have no regrets and was definitely not missing my brother's graduation (shout out to Luke Felix who created my first blog and convinced me to start this back in the day), just a little sad they had to overlap.

I am going to make an effort to head up to the PA Distance Festival next weekend. Our own Garrett Zatlin will be in attendance and likely competing there so it would be cool to cheer him on and see the races (should be some fast ones). There's also a chance we would be producing another batch of etrain shirts special for the event if there's seems to be demand. We would, unfortunately, have to sell them as financially I'm not sure I could throw out a ton of free t-shirts (... again). That's still very up in the air and would certainly have to check with Coach K before doing that, but if there's enough demand I'll do what I can to make it happen.

Anyway, this isn't about me, it's about all of you. What an amazing state championship. I can't stress this enough. It was truly unlike anything I've ever seen. You had some of the greatest historic achievements in the state (Domenic and Dominic completing the triples) but you also had some of the most exciting, jaw dropping and wide open state championship finals in recent memory.

But perhaps the most unbelievable part of the meet was the team championship race. That's what really puts this thing over the top. The AA boys race was decided by just 3 points and the AAA boys race was decided by just 1! DT West ends up just missing out on the sweep of the titles across the three sports which, at least recently, had never been completed. I honestly rarely remember who wins the state title in a given year. If I'm being entirely truthful, I often don't care. And neither do most people. But this year, the outdoor championships received genuine hype about two truly unbelievable teams. Although each team had their stars, each time had a boat load of scorers across a variety of disciplines. And, at the end of the day, the meet came down to the final race, where both teams finished in the top 2!

Here's what's crazy to me personally. Weather played a huge role in deciding who was crowned state champions. You could say this started Friday night when storms forced the officials to cancel the 4x400 heats for AA and AAA boys (and AAA girls) and, instead, run the event as a 4 heat timed final on Saturday. But you would also have to remember that at Shippensburg the previous weekend, District 3 schools faced brutal conditions at the end of the meet, just trying to finish with any sort of strong seed times for states.

That meant that Camp Hill, Milton Hershey and Central Dauphin East were forced into tough spots that, arguably, swung the championships. Camp Hill ran in the first of 4 heats in the AA 4x400. They won their section by roughly 4 seconds. When the dust finally settled in the final section, Camp Hill ended up with the 4th fastest time overall. If they had finished second (roughly 3 seconds faster) they would have tied for the team championship. If they had placed 1st (roughly 4 seconds faster) they would have won the title. Could they have made up that ground? We won't ever know for sure, but it's kind of funny how fate works out.

On the flip side, State College, knowing DT West was likely going to win the 4x4, needed to get 2nd. They waited and watched first as CD East ran 3:18 from section 2 in 3:18.14 (roughly 4 second margin of victory). Then district 3's Milton Hershey clocked a 3:16.66 to move into the top spot heading into the final. Worth noting, District 3 won heats 1, 2 and 3 in the AAA 4x4 and no district 3 teams competed in heat 4.

SC ended up beating Hershey by just 0.09 seconds when the numbers were finally calculated for their heat. If they had let up by a fraction of a fraction of a second, they would have lost the state title. If Milton Hershey, CD East and State College had raced in the final together, would the order have changed? Again, we'll never know. And, personally, I like it that way.

Next, I will turn my attention to the state championship recaps where I'll break down my thoughts on each of the 4 distance races in AA and AAA. But before I go on, I'd just like to, again, get all philosophical with you. I will definitely be trying to highlight the great races rather than dwell on the off days. Bad days happen to everyone, sometimes on the biggest stage. I don't pretend to know the whole story (could be injuries, personal problems, literally anything) and it's not really my business to know the whole story.

But I do know this. Every kid who competed at the state championships this weekend should be very proud. You qualified for a spot in the top track and field invitational in our borders and one of the best meets in the nation. Many of you are coming back next year to high school and can use this day as motivation. Others are going on to compete in college and will continue to get stronger with each adversity faced. Still others may be done running, but they'll never be done competing. Whether it's at a job, in a relationship or just a pick up basketball game among friends, we runners are too strong, too fierce and too determined to not be competitive in something. And that's what makes runners and the running community so strong. That's what helps make us who we are.

So if you ran well, hold your head high. If you are disappointed, hold your head high too. Because I still think of all of you as winners. And I promise, you're family, friends, coaches and teammates do too.

As always, stay classy and, if you're into that sort of thing, get pumped for the event recaps coming soon to a computer screen near you.

Sincerely,
Jarrett "etrain11" Felix

P.S. For those who haven't read it, definitely check out RJJL's comments on the team title race in the post just below this one. It's a fantastic read. You've still got a job here if you want it kid ...

P.P.S. The Prediction Contest Results Are In! This one was crazy, particularly in the 800 and 3200, but Sean Collins navigated the field en route to a victory. He was the only one to pick Alex Milligan as state champ in the 1600 and made some other key predictions to get the W. Check out the post on the index on the side of the screen for the full break down of scores.