Team Titles Revisited: 2007

2007 State Championships

by Jarrett Felix

In 2006, Coatesville cemented its legacy as the greatest cross country team in state history. However, when their top 5 runners graduated, it opened the door for a new team to emerge as state title winners. But who could do it? Henderson, who had been second at states, graduated their 3-5 runners. Strath Haven (3^rd) graduated their 1, 3, 4, 5. WC East graduated 2-5. But the 5^th place team, North Allegheny, returned six of their top 7 including their first three runners to cross the line at Hershey. Plus, they were set to get back Patrick Morgan who had medaled for the Tigers at the 2005 state championships.

The WPIAL got a ton of love in the preseason rankings as Seneca Valley got a #4 ranking and Mount Lebanon got a #5 to go with North Allegheny’s #1 according to PTXC. Both teams returned four of their top five runners from teams that had placed in the top 10 overall the previous season. As for district one, who had accounted for 6 of the top 7 teams in the overall standings at states, no team returned a ton of firepower and so Upper Dublin, who had not even qualified for states the previous year, earned the #3 overall spot in the PTXC rankings. Henderson, Horsham, Coatesville and North Penn also joined them on in the rankings. North Penn returned their entire top 5 from a year previously, but had been just 14^th in the district. The others were state qualifiers from the previous season and XC powerhouses.

But North Penn quickly proved they belonged. In their first race of the season, the Knights rolled to an upset victory at the Briarwood Invitational. They defeated Holy Ghost Prep and Upper Dublin in impressive fashion, placing three runners in the top 10 overall at the deep meet. Zach Hoagland led the way with a thrilling 15:49 on the difficult lay out, just behind Chris Bodary’s record setting performance.

North Allegheny’s first big win would come soon after. They traveled to Hershey for the first ever Foundation Invitational: a preview of the Hershey Parkview course. The race was separated into “Gold” and “Blue” classifications and the top teams, North Allegheny and the surprising Holy Ghost Prep, were in separate classifications. In merged results, NA barely edged out Prep with a score of 137 to their opponents 138. North East, a AA squad, finished 3^rd in the merged standings ahead of Hatboro Horsham. It was a nice win for the Tigers, but a bigger result for HGP who had now acquitted itself well in back to back major invitationals. Both squads were geared up to take on North Penn, Upper Dublin and more at the upcoming Carlisle Invitational the next weekend.

A week removed from their Foundation victories, NA and Prep struggled at Carlisle. A few Tigers missed the start of the race and as a result NA placed 0 runners in the top 15 of the team standings. Matt Jacob, a defending state medalist and consistent leader on the team, finished in just 34^th overall. So, despite a strong pack, NA didn’t have the front running presence they were hoping for which left the door open for an upset. And the upset was delivered by the boys from North Penn. Behind Hoagland’s 15:40 runner up finish, north Penn cruised to a big win with 48 points. They placed 3 in the top 6 and five in the top 25. Upper Dublin finished in 2^nd place with 76 points and then NA earned bronze with a 127. Coatesville quietly finished 3th with a respectable 143 points and beat the darlings of the early season HG Prep (173).

North Penn only continued to roll from there. They won the D Race at the prestigious Manhattan Invitational with an absurd 12:57.1 average. PTXC said it was the 2^nd fastest team average in the meets history. They also crushed the Suburban One League competition and set themselves up well for the district championships. Upper Dublin was hungry to try and run them down after winning their own league, but it would definitely be an uphill battle.

Meanwhile, District 3’s Cumberland Valley was beginning to pick up steam. They were the #2 squad for PA at the Paul Short Invitational (behind non-PIAA Germantown Friends) and won the prestigious Mid Penn Invitational in style. They had carved out a niche for themselves in the PTXC rankings and even moved ahead of North Allegheny in the team rankings. But the District 3 Championships may have crippled any hopes CV had of competing for a state medal. After storms pushed the meet back to October 28^th (just 6 days before states), sloppy conditions led to a wild race. Cumberland Valley finished 3^rd in the district with 129 points, defeated by Cedar Crest and Red Land. Only two runners bested the 17 minute mark on the course and just 26 broke 18 minutes. The difficult conditions also put the D3 boys in a physical hole heading back to Hershey for states.

Across the state in both directions, the favorites were asserting themselves across the state. North Allegheny won both the Tri State Invitational as well as the WPIAL title, picking up solid wins over top pursuers Seneca Valley and North Hills. North Hills beat SV at Tri-States and finished just 4 points behind the PTXC ranked squad at WPIALs, thanks in part to the excellent performances of their two stud freshman, Juris Silenieks and Joe Kush who were the team’s 1-2 punch at Tri-States when they won silver over SV. The WPIAL champs also debuted a strong freshman of their own. Ryan Gil placed 26^th at the D7 Champs and finished as the team’s 5^th scorer.

However, District One, with perhaps the fastest course and best competition of all the district layouts, stole the show as usual. North Penn put on a clinic, scoring 92 points and defeating a great effort from Upper Dublin by 78. North Penn did it with Brad Miles, a sophomore, running as their #1 with a 15:24. Four of their runners broke 16 minutes and their #5 crossed in 16:05. That would be tough to beat, even for a UD team with 4 under 16:10. The usual contenders, Coatesville, CR North and Horsham, all qualified for states as well in spots 3-5, Coatesville scoring 222 and North posting a 244. HG Prep got the 6^th and final qualifying spot for states.

Heading to Hershey, it was believed that North Penn and Upper Dublin were nearly assured a 1-2 finish. Some put stock in North Allegheny, but the fast times seen at Lehigh, combined with the teams’ finishes at Carlisle, had really made a statement. At the one mile mark of the state championships, those thoughts were justified. North Penn raced out to the lead with 95 points and UD trailed slightly at 108. Then North Allegheny hung tough in 3^rd with 110 points. Although UD was leading, their #6 and #7 runners were in the 100s for team scoring so any small slip would be costly. North Allegheny, on the other hand, had all 7 runners in the top 50 of team scoring.

HG Prep was in 4^th thanks to an ambitious start from their front three and then Coatesville was in 5^th with 173 points. The pace was incredibly fast early on. The leaders hit the mile in 4:38, 32 runners were out under 4:50 and 100^th place was 5:01.

The two mile splits for many runners were missing, but the results at the finish showed a surprising flip. Upper Dublin’s #4 and #5 runners slipped slightly in the field over the final mile opening the door for teams to slip by them and fight for the silver medals. But North Penn didn’t slip as their front runners actually moved up farther through the field en route to a 90 point performance.

The battle for second ended up being a two team race. North Allegheny placed two runners in the top 12 overall and got a huge lift from freshman Ryan Gil who finished as the team’s #3 runner in 25^th for team scoring. That breakthrough could have potentially been enough to get on the podium, but the defending state champions had something to say about it. Coatesville stunned with a big final stretch to score 107 points and edge out NA by just 3. Their sophomore Billy Hackmeister had a massive breakthrough to finish 57^th at states after taking 68^th at Districts. That helped pull teammate Bryan Wolf to a huge day as he was 59^th at both states and districts. Even after losing their top 5 runners, Coatesville proved they belonged among the best in the state and stunned the field to get silvers and come within just 17 points of back to back golds.

Making their own improbable run to the finish, the boys from Seneca Valley threw down a stunning jump over the final 2 miles. They moved from 13^th to 4^th over those approximately 11 minutes, led by Cam Stauffer and Chris Cipro’s huge jump into the medals. That and a solid performance from sophomore Andrew Razanauskas gave the team a strong pack and jumped them 35 points ahead of Upper Dublin who finished in 5^th.

Just like in 2009, one of the best teams in the state was absent from the State Championships. Germantown Friends, led by future indoor state and national champ Max Kaulbach, were rolling through their competition during the season and hoping to qualify for the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland. They had a very talented top 3 as well as an up and coming #4 runner in sophomore Gus McKenzie. At the regional championships, we got to see just how they stacked up against PA’s state champs North Penn. This time, unlike ’09, the PIAA squad got the victory as North Penn defeated GFS 106 to 165. Unfortunately, neither team made it to the national championships as they finished 4^th and 5^th in the final standings.