PA Alumni at Regionals

By: Garrett Zatlin

Although most of my material focuses on D1, we have to give some love to our fellow writer Caleb Gatchell for placing 7th at D2 nationals in the 1500. It's an incredible accomplishment especially when you consider how much improvement Caleb has gone through to get to this level. Congrats CG!

Moving on, there were plenty of PA alum that were running at Regionals this past weekend. Check out below to see how they did...

EAST REGION
800
PA was able to qualify four alumni for this event which included Ned Willig (Brown), Christian Sanders (La Salle), John Lewis (Clemson), and Alek Sauer (Columbia). Throughout the season, it was pretty clear that Willig and Sanders were the most dominant of the PA alumni while Lewis and Sauer were consistently putting up solid times despite being freshmen.

After the prelims on Thursday, Willig and Lewis failed to advance to the finals. Willig just simply had an off day running 1:51 flat. Lewis on the other hand, just got unlucky as he was seeded in the fastest/most competitive heat. Lewis would go on to run 1:48.66 and be the first man to miss the finals.

However, it was Christian Sanders advancing to the final along with a very popular name in the PA running community: Alek Sauer. Sauer was able to grab an automatic qualifying spot out of the prelims by running a PR of 1:48.82. Unfortunately, he would falter in the final by finishing 21st overall.

Many of the writers thought that Willig would be the only qualifier for NCAA's. Instead, it was Sanders who proved us wrong and got an automatic qualifier to NCAA's with an outstanding 1:46.65 PR. Sanders has proven to us that he is the real deal this season. He has improved in nearly every race he's been in and has taken down some big names in the process. Even with an incredibly deep 800 field, Sanders could very well grab All-American honors...or maybe even more.

1500
This race included three of PA's finest milers, Alec Kunzweiler (Duke), John Westwood (Bucknell) and Colin Abert (Penn State). Abert was coming off an incredible indoor season where he was arguably the best PA alum the state had. In the mean time, Kunzweiler stayed on the DL during indoors before opening a string of consistent races all spring which eventually led a PR of 3:44 at ACC's. Westwood was able to make Regionals on his home track by running 3:45.

Unfortunately, none of the three mentioned above were able to advance to the finals. Abert and Kunzweiler were 3:53 and 3:54 while Westwood was a bit further off at 3:58. None of them were able to crack the top 40. Simply put, it was just a poor showing from our alumni who I'm sure were looking to improve on their times or make it to the finals.

10,000
With no PA alum in the steeplechase or 5000, it was Glen Burkhardt (Penn State) and Brenden Shearn (Penn) who were left to represent Pennsylvania.

Although Burkhardt kept it close, he wasn't able to keep up with the pack that made a hard move at around 2k to go. The final few laps were quick and Burkhardt just didn't have the leg speed to keep up. Burkhardt would finish 17th overall with a time of 30:22, ending his (impressive) collegiate running career.

Shearn, on the other hand, just never seemed comfortable throughout the race. He fell back early on and couldn't catch up. He would eventually pull out of the race with something that may have been more than discomfort (but it's tough to tell if he was injured or not). It was a tough way to end the season, but Shearn can at least take solace in the fact that he still has one year of racing left to make up for this past weekend.

WEST REGION
1500
As it turns out, Tom Coyle (Stanford) was the only PA alum that ran in the west region distance events. Due to weather canceling the first day of prelims, the 1500 was run on Saturday as a final. An all or nothing race didn't play in favor of Coyle who had a rough day by finishing 35th overall with a time of 3:49. The man with a 3:42 PR was probably not very happy with his performance, but he should take comfort in the fact that he still has two years of eligibility left for outdoor track.


Tune in later for NCAA previews!