Team Titles Revisited: 2009

2009 State Championships

by Jarrett Felix

After back to back titles for the Knights of North Penn, it looked like the torch would finally pass in 2009. North Penn returned their top 2 runners, but lost #3-6. Meanwhile, a program with a pair of back-to-back titles on its resume in West Chester Henderson, returned their entire top 7 from a 7^th place team in 2008. That included Will Kellar who was 2^nd at states as a junior and PA’s #1 returner. With a returning roster of that caliber, it was hard to leave Henderson off the top of the list.

That being said, the boys from LaSalle were an interesting contender in their own right. The Explorers had joined the PIAA a year earlier and immediately made their presence felt. They upset North Allegheny and a slew of District One powerhouses to grab the silvers in Hershey. They had a brilliant 24 second spread, the tightest of the field, and showcased just how dangerous the PCL was at peaking at the right time. LaSalle returned five of their top 7 including #1, #3 and #4.

After North Allegheny’s recent success on the state level, the WPIAL was beginning to be seen as a much bigger threat in the team title landscape than they had been in the half decade prior. Milesplit’s preseason rankings put two District 7 teams in the top 10 overall. The top school? That honor belonged to North Hills who returned 4 runners with the potential to place in at least the top 50 of the state. Rising juniors Joe Kush and Juris Silenieks had each placed in the top 50 of the state as a freshman and had the talent to make noise after a somewhat disappointing sophomore campaign.

But when the season began, a completely new school was the first team to really make a dent in the rankings. The boys from Altoona in District 6 had placed 13^th at states in 2008. Their District, District 6, had had little to no impact on the state title scene, both individually and team wise for quite some time. Programs like State College and Altoona were historically great, but had been buried in the standings behind D1, D3 and D7. However, Altoona, with a core led by sophomore state medalist Wade Endress, pulled out victories at Big Valley and Slippery Rock (they won this invite 36 to 118) and put the rest of Pennsylvania on notice.

Meanwhile, the WPIAL was providing its own shake up in the rankings. Preseason favorites North Hills took 5-7-9 at RWB, but looked to be missing the firepower at 4-5 to be state title contenders and, therefore, had to settle for 6^th overall in their first invite. The other preseason ranked team, North Allegheny, looked stronger at RWB. Their top two returners, Ryan Gil and Eric Balaban, looked confident and capable with 3^rd and 13^th place finishes in their opener. The pack showed some potential as well with five runners in the top 30 overall. But NA finished just 2^nd in the team standings. The top team was Baldwin who, after graduating one of their biggest stars in TJ Hobart, proved they still had some talent on the roster. They scored 78 points and placed four runners under 16:30 to take the victory.

A week later LaSalle made their team debut at the Briarwood Invitational. Here, they defeated the defending state champions in North Penn by almost 100 points and finished second overall behind West Windsor of New Jersey (who got a 1-2 finish from Joe and Jim Rosa) by just 6 points. LaSalle’s top 3 runners finished 7^th, 9^th and 10^th overall. For the moment, Henderson stuck to some short relay invitationals, opening the door from some intense debate on whether they were still the favorites for the state title.

Compounding the discussion was a dream match-up scheduled for the Carlisle Invitational. Lasalle (PTXC #2), Altoona (PTXC #3), Cumberland Valley (#6), North Penn (#7), Hatboro Horsham and North Allegheny (T-#8) were all scheduled to compete at the September 26^th Invitational to sort out the #1 contender position. On race day, conditions were excellent and the pace was fast. North Penn’s Brad Miles ran 15:20 to defeat Rad Gunzenhauser of Mt Lebanon. It was a brilliantly fast performance and helped lead an unprecedented 8 runners under 16 minutes. Miles performance along with fellow front runner Sam Bernitt was enough to help propel North Penn to a solid 7^th place finish but they were almost 200 points out of the action out front.

LaSalle made a big statement victory scoring 89 points with a 16:20 average for their top 5 runners. They placed 3 in the top 15 scorers and their entire top 7 finished in the top 42 team scorers. Only North Allegheny got their 4^th runner in before LaSalle’s 7^th. The battle for second was much closer with 3 teams separated by just 29 points. Altoona (140) proved their early season invitational wins were no fluke as they defeated North Allegheny (151) and Cumberland Valley (169). Altoona had three runners in the top 16 scorers with Wade Endress, Chris Fischer and Mike Harf. Two of their top returners from 2008, Jordan Liberman and Tyler Lidwell, didn’t even compete that day. Altoona was definitely for real.

If Henderson was intimidated by the strong performances at Carlisle, they certainly didn’t show it in their next invite. They put together a strong 6^th place showing at the Manhattan Invitational and beat the LaSalle explorers by 62 points over the 4k distance. In fact, the next closest PIAA team behind Henderson was defending state champs Norht Penn, who finished 37 points ahead of LaSalle after losing by nearly 200 at Carlisle. The difference? Manhattan was a large race with a ton of talent at the front. LaSalle’s top runner finished just 38^th in team scoring so, despite the fact that they had a 16 second spread, they couldn’t overcome the 2-5 finish from North Penn’s Miles and Bernitt. So despite their dominant showing at Carlisle, PTXC dropped LaSalle all the way down to 9^th in the state rankings.

The ever changing state landscape continued to shuffle as the PA teams entered the championship season. Henderson won their league title with 31 points, but Unionville hung tough behind them with an impressive 46 points. Matt Fischer, the 4:20 miler who had been injured most of the summer, was showing signs that he was returning to form and junior Glenn Burkhardt was one of the state’s breakout stars. At Tri States, North Allegheny avenged their early season loss to Baldwin and eeked out a 66 to 78 victory. Ryan Gil won the individual title with a 15:38 and helped pull his teammates along nicely: they placed 4 in the top 16 overall. Baldwin, who had 4 in the top 20, had to settle for the silvers despite a terrific performance. In third place was North Hills. They also placed 4 in the top 20, but their #5 runner finished 118^th overall and pushed them back to 148 points in total.

Shortly thereafter, Altoona scored just 16 points at the District 6 Championships for nearly a perfect score. LaSalle scored 33 points at District 12 after scoring 31 at PCLs with just a 17 second spread. And District 3’s Conrad Weiser won a second straight district title with just 69 points and 3 in the top 10. After Henderson and NA won their districts (with North Penn and Baldwin each claiming second), all the favorites were through to states and everyone looked like they were peaking at the right time.

Henderson was probably the favorite coming in, but arguments were made for LaSalle to pull off the upset. Personally, LaSalle was my pick coming into Hershey (they were ranked #6 in the PTXC rankings prior to states, #5 out of PIAA teams). I thought their pack would be enough to get the job done and usurp Henderson in a tight race. But they would need a strong day from returning state medalist Tommy O’Kane. He was 25^th in the state in 2008, but injuries had led to an up and down stretch run to his season to date. The sleeper team? Might have been North Hills. They had placed 4 in the top 20 at WPIALs including #3, 4 and 5. If their 5^th could have a decent day in a smaller race (big if I suppose), they would be right in the mix.

The race tipped off on November 7^th and the first mile was about as wild as you would have expected. No  team was under 100 points at the mile. The leaders were Altoona with 122 points, but they held just a 23-point advantage and all the big name schools were right with them. 7 teams sat under 190 points including the defending state champs in North Penn. Baldwin, LaSalle, Henderson and North Allegheny were teams 2-5. LaSalle had the best pack, while North Allegheny had just one runner in the top 38 scorers.

At the two mile mark, the picture was, in some ways, clearer. North Penn and Conrad Weiser had fallen out of contention after ambitious first miles. Now just 5 teams resides under 200 points. But it was incredibly tight. LaSalle had the lead with 131 points, but Altoona was just 3 points back, NA was 8 points back and Henderson was 9 back. Baldwin was in 5^th and still had a shot to close the gap, sitting with 158 points. Unionville had climbed from 12^th to 6^th and was closing down, but they were likely to run out of real estate.

LaSalle had just one runner in the top 30 overall, but their scoring 5 was separated by just 14 seconds. Altoona could boast two runners in the top 11 overall and had three in the top 24 of team scoring. All they needed was a close from their 5^th spot. They had sophomores at #4 and #5 including the extremely talented Korey Replogle. If either of the sophomores stepped up, they could erase the 3-point disadvantage.

For North Allegheny, Henderson and Baldwin, although the deficit was small, the path to victory was not easy. They would have to jump at least two teams and make big moves at the 3, 4 and 5 spots to get back in contention. Henderson had just two runners in the top 60 overall and NA had just one in the top 45.

Over the final mile, each team battled tooth and nail for every point. As the runners filtered through the shoot, fans frantically tried to count places. LaSalle’s pack stayed tight all the way through to the finish as they kept just a 15 second spread. No one else in the top 10 teams was under 53 seconds. It seemed for a moment that may have been enough. But it wasn’t. When the points were tallied, it was revealed that LaSalle finished 3^rd overall in the team standings and was just off the podium. They had 137 points and were jumped by two teams who had 128 and 119.

Altoona, who had been in the mix for the title throughout, was not one of those teams. They crossed with 141 total points. Although their talented sophomores Reade and Replogle made some moves through the field on the final mile, Senior Mike Harf struggled back to the #6 spot. Wade Endress also slipped a couple points back after being in the top 10 for much of the race.

The big movers were Henderson and North Allegheny. Senior Luke Badaczewski of the Tigers had been running in the #2 spot for much of the race. He wasn’t typically in this spot, but he ran a gutsy race to try and help his team reach the podium. Luke faded just a bit on the last mile, but he pulled plenty of teammates with him. Eric Balaban, a varsity member of the team’s national qualifying squad from a year earlier, moved from 54^th to 38^th in the final mile and dragged Jay Cadwallader to 44^th and Mike Smolinski to 33^rd. With a low stick out front in Gil who scored just 2 team points, 20 less than LaSalle’s #1, NA was able to stun their way to the silver. It was their best finish of the past 3 seasons for perhaps their least critically acclaimed team.

That meant Henderson ended up with the title. They went from 140 to 119 over the final mile and jumped 3 excellent teams to get the gold. It was a truly incredibly race. Senior and #2 runner Achraf Khattabi actually faded ever so slightly over the final mile, but Henderson’s #3, 4 and 5 had one of the best finishes of any team in the history of the state championship. Stash Grab, Austin Stecklair and Bryan Andrews were all right next to each other at two miles, sitting at 63^rd, 64^th, and 65^th. With the pressure on, Andrews moved to 43^rd overall, Grab to 46^th and Stecklair to 59^th which was just enough to defeat their rivals.

And get this. Andrews finished less than a second ahead of Cadwallader for NA. Grab finished 5 seconds ahead of Smolinski and Stecklair finished just one second ahead of Badaczewski. Those were critical passes against an important jersey.

Baldwin and Unionville finished 5^th and 6^th, both scoring under 200 points. With 6 teams under 200 and such a tight finish throughout the race, the 2009 state championship was one of the deepest in state history. And the results are quite shocking. LaSalle, who had their entire top 5 in the top 54 overall finishers is perhaps the only team in recent history to place 5 in the top 54 and finish completely off the podium. The fact that the field was so deep likely hurt them most of all. In 2009, Brendan Stone finished 54^th overall and was the 34^th team scorer. In 2010, Matt Groff was 58^th overall and was the 30^th team scorer. It doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up quickly, especially in a tight race. If you compare 2009 to 2010, LaSalle’s performance was worth about 115 points in 2010 just from the difference in team scoring vs. overall scoring. Plus, they didn’t have a front runner. North Hills finished with 3 in front of their #1 meaning they would have lost to NH in a typical dual meet format even though NH finished well back of them in the team standings (NH finished 8^th with 263 points, 149 of which came from their #5 and 81 came from their #4).

Ironically the 2009 LaSalle and North Hills squads are two of the most fascinating teams of the past decade. To me at least. When you look at the results of the race at a glance, it’s crazy to me that the school’s finished in the order they did. Until I add up the numbers and see for myself. It’s pretty incredible.

Of course, perhaps the craziest thing about the 2009 State Championship is that the best team was not there. In 2009, Germantown Friends was PA’s best school. However, they were not in the PIAA and did not participate in the state championships at Hershey. They did however, defeat essentially all of PA’s best squads at the NXNE Regional championships and finish 2^nd overall in the region, qualifying for the National Championships. GFS also defeated Henderson (by 5 points), LaSalle and North Penn at the Manhattan Invitational and controlled the #1 spot in the PTXC rankings for most of the 2009 season.

Although they dominated the independent league (five in the top 9 overall), we didn’t get to see them at their peak vs. most other squad’s peak (Henderson was the top PIAA school in 8^th, followed by Altoona in 10^th, LaSalle in 11^th and Baldwin in 14^th). We got robbed I’m afraid. And so we will remember Henderson as the 2009 state champions instead of GFS. If only we had a meet of champs of some kind …

Small final ammendum here. The fall of 2009 was my senior season in high school so I knew a lot of these guys pretty well. I ran with many of the LaSalle guys in my St. Alphonsus days (well sort of, they were all way faster than me) so I probably had a soft spot for that squad. I ended up playing volleyball with some of the LaSalle guys and some of the North Penn guys over the summer. Miles was just as good at volleyball as running.

The 2009 state meet is one of just three XC state meets I’ve attended and we left before the final team standings were calculated. I actually left the meet assuming LaSalle had won.