The Etrain 11: Running Up Hill

By Jarrett Felix

At the 2016 PIAA Outdoor State Championships, the headlines were grabbed by the intriguing AAA match-up between State College and Downingtown West, which came all the way down to the final event and the final results sheet. However, the AA state title match was just as fascinating and just as nail biting.

District 3 housed two of the best teams: Schuylkill Valley and Camp Hill. The small school from Camp Hill, who had a class of about 100 Seniors set to graduate later that summer, was hoping to continue what was called a “Golden Age” in Camp Hill athletics. With the exception of wrestling, each Camp Hill sports team had qualified for states in the past two years.

When the 2016 track season began, Camp Hill senior Blake Behney explained, “Getting the state title was our number one priority. Also, we had a goal of getting all 3 of our relays a state medal.” By the time they reached the state championship, each of those three relays had qualified for states, but they would have a tough battle to get to the podium, including an unforeseen complication in the 4x400 trials. But Camp Hill was ready for a war. They’d survived one before.

***

In November of 2015, the Camp Hill boys entered the A State Cross Country Championships with the goal of winning state gold. It had been at the forefront of their minds since their first trip to Hershey back in September. 

“Throughout the summer and early fall we were all hammering workouts and looking great. I think that we really realized it (state gold) was achievable after we took 2nd at the PIAA Foundation meet. Knowing that one of our top guys could have an off day and we could still perform well was a big confidence booster.” That’s how Blake Behney described it after he personally struggled at the Foundation meet. But the team continued to develop. They packed it up at the Gettysburg Invite and pulled together their tightest spread of the season, fixing a potentially costly weakness heading into a state title run. The team was clicking at the right time, but out west, a new challenger was rising to face them.

Although Winchester Thurston (the defending state champs) had been the team to topple Camp Hill at Foundation, Sewickley Academy had emerged from the WPIAL championships victorious. They sported a young, improved pack behind two dynamite front runners in Griffin Mackey and Ben Clouse. The Etrain Power Rankings put Sewickley Academy as the favorites prior to the state championships, with their western rivals Winchester Thurston also in a great position to defend their title. The two teams had a projected 5 state medalists between them.

As if there wasn’t already a ton of pressure on this school, Blake Behney was wrestling with a few extra issues of his own. “Before the meet, we were all, understandably, anxious. Doubt lingered in the back of my mind due to the physical condition I was in. All summer I had been destroying even the toughest workouts and was poised, according to coach, for a top 5 finish at states. However, once the season started, something was a little off. My workouts were getting slower and feeling more difficult.”.

Camp Hill relied, in large part, on the strength of their top 3 runners and needed a big day from Blake who had placed 9th a year earlier. But on race day, he struggled through the motions. At the one mile mark, Camp Hill was in 6th place as a team with 195 points. Sewickley Academy had 89 points and Winchester Thurston had 105, both well ahead of the local squad. By the two mile, they had snuck up a few more spots, moving into 4th overall and just 43 points behind Sewickley Academy in the race for gold. But the team would need a big final mile if they were going to even make it to the podium.

“The race itself was a blur, but I do distinctly remember passing the 2 mile mark and kicking as hard as I could for that last mile.”

***

It’s not quite as easy to keep track of the score at a track meet as it may be at a basketball game with a giant scoreboard. It would have been especially difficult for Camp Hill, whose main competition wasn’t even competing on the track. The boys from Schuylkill Valley scored all of their 39 points in the field events, winning the Pole Vault, Long Jump and Shot Put.

So from the start, Camp Hill had work to do to chip away at the lead. Fortunately, they were starting the meet with one of their best events: the 4x800m. Despite an injury in the prelims, Camp Hill Senior Blake Behney was able to gut out a strong split on the relay and keep the squad competitive mid race. With Ian Gabig and Cooper Leslie’s monster splits added into the equation, the team pulled out their first sub 8 mark of the season and finished 5th place overall in one of the deepest 4x8s AA had seen in recent history.

“When Coach said we would be a sub 8 relay, I never believed him,” Leslie, the team’s anchor, remembers, “Mostly because he said it last year and we ran an 8:25. All four guys on our relay gave it their all, every meet, every practice.”

They kept the ball rolling as Zack Kuntz scored in the 110 hurdle finals and Leslie doubled back in the 1600, placing 3rd overall in the loaded field that was won by the legendary Domenic Perretta. Leslie, who had split 1:53 on the 4x8 earlier in the morning, had only about an hour to turn around for the 1600, but was able to hang on in the hot weather and earn a bronze as well as the critical 6 points that came with it.

All the doubling wasn’t new to Cooper. He had been doubling, tripling and quadrupling throughout the season (including the district 3 championships the previous weekend) and had even played in a district championship soccer match shortly after running the cross country state championships at one of the most grueling courses in the nation.

***

“Training with me was a bit odd during XC. I never actually practiced with the cross country team, since soccer was main sport in the fall. I ran about 4 days a week on top of soccer practice and soccer games, sometimes doing workouts before I leave for a game or right after soccer practice.” Cooper’s training wasn’t exactly the typical formula for cross country success, but he put in the extra work needed to perform well in both events during the fall. And it helped him earn the respect of a pair of programs.

“Our soccer team was playing for the district championship at Hershey Park Stadium later that day. While we were warming up we witnessed a mob of people arrive in the same warmups. The entire soccer team came to watch us run.” Behney described it as his favorite moment of the cross country season.

Camp Hill’s small school size could be seen as a disadvantage. But the close knit high school community helped provide an extra spark for Camp Hill when they needed it most. With a mile to go in the Cross Country State Championship, CH sat in 4th place. Their top five runners were in 14th, 35th, 37th, 95th and 96th place. If they wanted to have any shot at their dream gold, they needed to give the last mile everything they had.

As had been the case all season, Cooper Leslie led the team with a clutch race. He pushed all the way to 6th place overall on the final mile. Blake Behney rallied like a champion as well. He finished 22nd overall and earned a second straight state medal. He would later find out that he had mono for the entire cross country season, making his performance all the more heroic. Rounding out the team’s top 3, Junior Ian Gabig finished 26th overall, less than a second from the final medal. The previous year, he had finished just 91st at states.

But making the biggest jump of the group was Camp Hill’s Dan Shank. The 4th runner moved all the way up to 62nd place overall and 29th in team scoring during the final mile, passing some important runners in the final standings. But would it be enough?

Gathering their team from the aftermath of the state title race, the Camp Hill boys gathered together to await the results of the state championship meet. Blake found his fellow senior Cooper in his go to post race position. “The trashcan.” Blake remembers, “We walked over to Tim (Johnson) and asked if he thought we won.”

“He didn’t think so.”

***

As the meet continued, Camp Hill continued to excel. Andrew Snyder took second overall in the 200m, the 4x100 ended up in the top 5 and Zack Kuntz rounded out his season with 3 individual state medals. Some quick math showed that Camp Hill had 31 points, which put them 8 points back from Schuylkill Valley with just on event remaining: the 4x400.

The previous night, the 4x4 trials had been cancelled due to severe weather. That meant the 4x4 was being run as a 4 heat final on Saturday. It was potentially bad news for Camp Hill. Because of bad weather at the District championships the previous weekend, they had not run a 4x4 that was truly indicative of their abilities. That left them stuck in Heat 1 of 4, the slowest heat. They would not just need to win this heat, but dominate it, if they were going to finish the day a top the team standings.

So the 4x4 did just that. They ran their hearts out in Heat 1, running a monster 3:26.83 to win that heat by almost three and a half seconds, many runners competing in their 3rd or 4th or 5th race of the weekend. Once the stick crossed the line, that was all Camp Hill could do. Now, they could only wait for the final score to be revealed.

***

“After some interviews, Coop and I solemnly returned to the tent. A couple minutes passed and Tim arrived at our tent with a grin on his face. When he told us that we won, we all immediately took off across the field, screaming at the top of our lungs.”

“Blake and I were walking back to the tent, and heard ‘Will a coach from Camp Hill please report to the blue trailer.’ All of a sudden, my Dad ran past us with his hands up screaming, ‘YOU GUYS WON.’ Blake and I literally sprinted around the field back to our tent and jumped into the arms of our ecstatic team. That was one of the most exciting moments of my life.”

It one of the most memorable results of the day, Camp Hill, with a total of 113 points, overcame 3 other teams in the final mile of the state championships to win the A State Title. Traditionally, a score of 113 is far from guaranteed a gold medal, but on race day, everything came together perfectly. They defeated Sewickley Academy by just 8 points, thanks in part to a fluke injury to Sewickley’s normal #2 Ben Clouse.

But these things happen, sometimes you are on the right side of it, other times you are on the wrong side. But many times, these things have a way of sorting themselves out.

***

When the final times were tabulated, it was revealed that Camp Hill had finished a hard fought fourth in the 4x400 relay. 3 teams from the day’s final heat had defeated them, including a narrow edge for Freeport Area who had taken the bronze. As a result, CH had to settle for the second place team trophy this time around. We will never know if the scores would have changed if the top 8 teams had run in a one section final.

It’s also worth noting that Schuylkill Valley had some close calls of their own. They won the Pole Vault at jumps as both of the top jumpers had cleared the top mark of 14 feet. In addition, they won the long jump on a tiebreaker, both of the top jumpers matched each other exactly on their best attempts. In some ways, their state title was won by a matter of inches.

But these things sometimes have a way of working themselves out.

Although second was not quite what they were hoping for, Camp Hill still left the meet with an impressive 3 state relay medals and a silver team trophy. Cooper Leslie placed 3rd overall in the 1600, his best individual mark of his career at a state championship. “The state meet was crazy. Although we came up short once again, I think we put out our best efforts. Not a single guy on the team performed poorly.” Leslie said of his last state championship.

Meanwhile, the Camp Hill boys would go on to show their distance chops with a 10:28 run in the DMR and New Balance Outdoor Nationals, putting them among the top schools in PA for the year. Despite their small school size.

“We had a terrific season and a ton to be proud of.”

The Camp Hill boys were on all sides of the magical roller coaster of state championships this year. They battled tooth and nail for every point in every race and never quit. Their small school environment proved to be a breeding ground for friendships, loyalty and the extra motivation that only the best teams have.

“Whether distance, sprints or field, everyone on the CH team is friends. Since we’re such a small team, and school for that matter, our friendships grew so much more quickly than usual. We all hangout outside of track, and that makes the season really special.”

“Given our small school size, everyone on the team knows each other. We do team warm up laps and everything. Even the throwers. Some of my best friends are sprinters, throwers and jumpers. The distance team is extremely close-knit, and it has been that way ever since I started running in 10th grade. While we’re running we don’t even talk about running that much, which is relaxing and a nice change of pace.”

Whether first or second, the Camp Hill boys seem to have their priorities in order and their heads on straight. After all, the best runners probably know a thing or two about the change of pace.

Next year, Blake Behney will attend Shippensburg University, where he just recently competed in the state championship 4x800 final. Cooper Leslie will be attending William and Mary in the fall. “I’m excited to see what happens with my times when I up my mileage a ton!” Leslie says.

“Oh, and I’ll be able to run against Blake at colonial relays, too.”

Like I said, these things sometimes have a way of working themselves out.

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