District Week Previews: District One

by Jarrett Felix

Click here for the full break down on all things District One

And click here to listen to me and ForrestCRN talk about all things District One

And hey! Click here on race day to follow along with live results for the District One Championship meet courtesy of runccrs!

District 1 Championships 10/28

A (1 Team, 5 Individuals)

The boys from Jenkintown looked very strong at their League Championships, holding their own against one of the top AA schools in Holy Ghost Prep. Sophomore Jack Miller has had a terrific season out front. He was second at leagues and was top 10 at the Foundation Invitational. They displayed a nice pack with few weak links for other teams to attack making them an interesting squad in the A team battle.

Individually, Jenkintown could win the title as well. As mentioned, Jack Miller has looked terrific this year, but so too has Tim Kennel of Dock Mennonite. The two finished right next to each other at leagues and Foundation so I’m excited for a rematch where the two should basically be racing one on one. Besides the Jenkintown army, keep an eye on Mekael Kassu of Church Farm and Charlie Shaefer of Delco County Christian to work their way up into the state qualifying conversation.

AA (1 Team, 5 Individuals)

The AA landscape got a big shake up this year as Pottsgrove and Bishop Shanahan, who have combined for all the district championships since 2012, both moved up to AAA. That left the door open for Holy Ghost Prep to punch their first ticket to states. Prep has looked very strong this year behind returning district champ Callahan Lennon. This team placed in the top 5 at the Foundation Invitational and look like intriguing dark horse contenders for a top 3 spot at states, perhaps similar to Bishop Shanahan a year ago. I’ll be watching the pack to see who steps up alongside Lennon as a contender. I’m also interested to see how strong their #5 runner looks as that seems to be one of the few weaknesses that can be attacked with some of the top teams.

As mentioned, Lennon likely will reclaim his title, but the battle for second could be wide open. New Hope moves up from A to AA to test the waters and has a slew of contenders for the silver including Chris Cammarata and Matt Peshek. Also sure to be in the mix is Landon Detweiler of Upper Perk. He dropped a very impressive mark at Paul Short (16:30s) which is the same course that he will traverse at districts.

AAA (5 Teams, 25 Individuals)

This is a unique year in the state of Pennsylvania. There’s a ton of drama across all the districts and classifications. The titles are fairly wide open almost across the board for districts and states. Things are just different this year. And, heck, take a look at some of the top names in the state right now. My projected top four finishers come from Bishop Shanahan, Souderton, Neshaminy and Owen J. Roberts. None of those programs have a particularly illustrious history. In fact, my senior year of high school those teams combined to send 0 runners to states out of AAA District 1. The top runner from any of those four schools was 45^th, Tim Haines of Neshaminy (future teammates with PTXC’s Dan Beck) and Owen J Robert’s top guy and I finished one second apart (I was 90^th for the record). And they finished 30^th, 34^th, 29^th and 38^th in the district respectively as teams.

Now Josh Hoey, Connor McMenamin, Rusty Kujdych and Liam Conway have a chance to break from the norm big time as one of them likely will end the day as district champion. My pick right now is Hoey, but that’s more of a gut feeling than a statistical analysis. I’d say the favorite is probably Kujdych and Conway is likely the long shot of the bunch.

I think that Ryan Campbell could potentially jump into this top tier as could Spencer Smucker if he shows he’s healthy and ready to roll. Those guys are both juniors to go along with Kujdych, Hoey and Conway in the same class. That’s a great group of talent.

There’s lots of names that I could discuss here (and I did a lot of it on the District One Preview Podcast), but I don’t want to fill up too much space. You can check out the full list of names by clicking on the link above and doing a little skimming. One thing I will say is there always seem to be certain teams that find a way to get a guy to state. Schools like Boyertown and Unionville come to mind. So keep an eye out for those team’s top runners as sleeper picks.

The team battle here should be a lot of fun. I’ve got CR North winning the title over DT West, although I’m a little nervous I’m underselling West’s pack. Personally, I just think West’s best effort will be seen at the state meet. However, Shaun Bullock could potentially have a big day on this course. He’s had a monster season and, in my opinion, has had some really clutch days on this lay out in the past. CRN and West have, on paper, perhaps the best #4 runners in the state. I’m excited to watch them match up in this one.

Spring Ford is a very interesting team. They had a huge day at Pioneer Champs last year and I jumped on the bandwagon, picking them to sneak into states at the #5 spot. Unfortunately, they got 6^th and missed out just barely against a great team led by an awesome front runner in CB East. This year, although they’ve had some ups and downs, the pack seems to be coming together at just the right moment and I find myself ready to jump on the bandwagon just as feverishly as I did before. I could see them taking second in this meet, but I’m trying to hold back on my enthusiasm just a bit. Where will that pack start? And will Milan Sharma continue his rise into top 25 contention? Those are a couple big questions we could see answered this weekend.

I was never too high on CB West, but you have to like what you saw out of them at leagues. Two years back, I picked against them for state qualifying and they made me pay, nearly surprising and winning the district. I’ve got them slotted for 4^th this year, but they have a chance to look very similar to Spring Ford if things break right.

The last spot looks up for grabs. Lower Merion has earned favorite honors in my eyes after an encouraging win at Centrals and a great run at Paul Short. They have a front runner, a nice group of top 40-60 types and a solid #5. That seems like a formula that could get the job done. But a bunch of teams will hoping to bust in and crash the party. I wrote down a long list of names when I was preparing for this preview of teams that I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget about for this topic. It got long pretty quickly.

Pennsbury, Conestoga, Henderson, WC Rustin, William Tennent, Souderton, North Penn, CB East … and I’ll probably still miss a school that ends up finishing in the top 8-10 (probably another Ches-mont school, maybe Owen J Roberts or Boyertown drops something). Conestoga and North Penn are just one breakthrough away from being right in the mix. Henderson and Pennsbury are two of the most consistent programs over the past five years. Rustin won the Ches-mont league and that usually guarantees a state birth (of course this was an odd year, but still). CB East may be my biggest sleeper. Getting 4^th at leagues could have been the best thing to happen to them. They will need Endres and/or Schulz to be in the top 25, but they’ve got the pieces to put together a big pack if they run with a little extra spark after getting bested at leagues.

Last thing I’ll say as I found this incredibly interesting. Who will be the top sophomore in the district? Dave Endres was tapped for that honor earlier in the year, but other guys have jumped up and joined the conversation. After last year, when we saw a terrific group of sophomores that included some eventual state medalists, will we see a breakout performer at the district meet? There’s not really an obvious choice. Keep in mind that district one has had at least one sophomore medal in the top 35 at states every seasons since 2008. Last year, they had four in the top 28.