District Week Previews: District Two

by Jarrett Felix

So with the first district meet officially in the books (congrats to Allerdice on a 1-7 sweep at the District 8 Championships led by state medal contender Amadou Diallo), it’s time for me to dive head first into the District by District state qualifying predictions. I’ll be doing my best to cover all the districts, all classifications and to get the posts up in order of the district meets themselves. Let’s get it going!

P.S. Couldn’t find an updated number of state qualifiers by district so I’m assuming it’s the same as last year. If it’s not and somebody has the updates, if you could let me know ASAP that would be clutch.

Don’t care about the analysis? Want to see my full state qualifiers? Click this link right here to take a look at the full breakdown. Note: This post and the linked post have been updated since their original appearance to reflect the changes to the qualification system in 2016. Thank you to Tracky McTrackerson for letting us know about the changes!

District 2 Championships 10/26

AAA (1 Team, 5 Individuals)

So this is my third year doing this and I’ve had varying successes. District 2 AAA has not been one of them. It’s been a bit wild as Hazleton pulled off a big win in 2014 and then Wallenpaupack turned the tide on them in 2015. Wallenpau lost their 2 through 7 runners from last year’s championship meet, but they showed some strong promise at the Paul Short Invite, led by Thomas Johnson’s 16:20 5^th place finish in the white race. This program has reloaded should have a similar looking team to the one that qualified for states a year ago.

I’ve also liked what I’ve seen from Scranton and Abington Heights. Abington Heights bested both Hazleton and Williamsport at the Foundation Invite this season showed a nice pack at Cliff Robbins and Lackawanna County, the latter of which they defeated Wallenpaupack. The key will be getting that extra front running in a small meet and maybe getting a little help from the other top names against Thomas Johnson to bring him down a few spots.

Ultimately, when I have a tough choice to make, I’m going to tend to go with the program that has proven themselves a little bit more so right now I lean towards Wallenpaupack. However, this race is really up for grabs and, with such a small field, should make for one of the more exciting district qualifying meets.

Individually, the battle should be tight as well. My projected top eight overall are all underclassmen (the top 6 are juniors) which would be pretty unprecedented if it came to fruition. As mentioned, Thomas Johnson looked fantastic at Paul Short and, after a 3^rd place finish in the district last year, he will be gunning for the title. However, fellow junior Tyler Holcomb beat out Johnson by 9 seconds in this race a year ago and looks poised to potentially topple him again. Holcomb had a strong showing at the Foundation Invite that indicates he’s running for a run at a district title. Franklin Cunningham is my other contender who could do damage. He led the race through the opening mile a year ago which shows just how fearless of a runner he is. Although he finished 4^th, I think an aggressive strategy could help him pull the upset this time around and keep the individual title with Hazleton for another season.

A (1 Team, 5 Individuals)

So if you’ve been following along with our new snapchat or the etrain podcast, then you probably already figured out my sleeper team in A is coming from District 2. The boys from Montrose, new to this classification, look like they belong among the tiers elite after a terrific showing at McQuaid and other out of state events. They have a very strong top 3 with Zach Mead, Owen Brewer and Brandon Curley, all of whom should be in the mix for the district title this year. The trio ran 16:03, 16:05 and 15:56 at that McQuaid invite for 3-miles. I’ve seen enough from Liam Mead to believe he can be a 4^th man on a championship team, the only question for me is the #5 spot and if they have quite enough there to match up with deep squads at Winchester Thurston and Elk County Catholic. But in terms of the district competition, I think they run away with this.

Elk Lake has been the perennial power from this division and has placed consistently among the top programs at states. Recently, they’ve had a marvelous pack, but have lacked the front running presence they’ve leaned on in the past. Under the old system, I would expect this team to qualify for states out of this district, but this year, they will have to show me something really special about that pack or perhaps get a statement win out of Cody Oswald (3^rd last year), if they are going to upset Montrose.

Holy Cross, who has made states the last two seasons, probably gets bounced thanks to Montrose’s arrival and the cuts in qualifiers. They also have to compete with Lakeland, a very strong team and program, who moves back to A after a brief period in AA. They would be my sleeper team to make noise.

Individually, I’ve mentioned the big three from Montrose and Elk Lake’s #1 guy (Oswald), but the real sleeper for the title could be a freshman. Andrew Healey of Holy Cross dropped a 16:33 to start his season on the very fast Northampton course, but backed it up with a 17:10 at George School and a 16:36 at Paul Short. Just reiterate, he’s just a freshman. We don’t often see frosh winning district championships, but this is the most talented runner HC has had since state champ Rico Galassi.

Matt Kinback of Lackawanna Trail and Peyton Jones from Elk Lake are two other top flight guys who could be factors in this race. Lakeland has their own talented frosh Noah Chup who could work his way into the state qualifying window. That being said, it's a tight window this year with just 5 spots up for grabs and either Montrose or Elk Lake sure to be jumping on multiple qualifiers.

AA (2 Teams, 10 Individuals)

You might have been reading this wondering, “what kind of order is he going in? AAA, A, AA? That makes no sense!” You probably weren’t doing that. You actually probably are just skimming this to look for actual predictions (click the link up top). But if you were wondering how I decided on this order, I went from the races I’m least intrigued in to the one’s I’m most intrigued in (nothing personal guys, well actually I guess it’s very personal since its only my opinion, so I guess I should have said no offense …). And District 2 AA is probably the best pound for pound district in the entire state over the past few seasons. And yes, I am counting District 1 AAA.

With the state champs in house individually the past three seasons, there will be plenty of buzz around whoever takes home the 2016 title. To me, it looks like it will be North Pocono Senior David Haines. He ran a huge time at Paul Short, dipping well under 16 minutes, and looks like he could follow in the footsteps of someone like Matt Kravitz, who finished 3^rd at states a year ago from the same school. Haines was a state medalist a year ago and is running very confidently right now.

But just one year ago, Haines outlasted Dallas’s Jack Zardecki by only 4 seconds for the top returner spot. Now Zardecki is a year older and a year stronger. Jack ran a fantastic race at his league championships, running away from a talented field that included Berwick’s 1-2 of Kimbell and Fisher. Jack has shown signs that he is ready to take the next step as a true front runner that Dallas will certainly need come states. He could send a big message with a victory over Haines in this one.

That Dallas team, the defending state champions by the way, have a really deep group of front runners in this field. Jason Culp was 8^th last year, Mitchell Rome was 21^st last year as a freshman and Adam Borton was 6^th. But Josh Wyandt, who finished outside the top 50 a year ago, has probably been their second best runner in ’16. Anybody from this Dallas core could be in the top 3-5 if they have a great day and their entire top 7 might end up in the top 20 overall. That would be a huge confidence booster for a team that has watched York Suburban and Greensburg Salem make serious noise this year.

As you probably guessed, Dallas is my pick to run away with the title. However, it’s worth noting that Berwick hung tough with the young bucks through 4 runners at Leagues. As mentioned Mason Kimbell and Ty Fisher are real talents who I think might end up in the top 5 overall in this one. Throw in Mitchell Martin and Jerod Waller and you have a top 4 that can hang with just about anyone else in the state. But how far back will their #5 be? At leagues, there was a 109 second gap between #4 and #5. Will that be too much or will someone step up and fill in the gap to lift Berwick to states (and maybe even make things interesting for Dallas)?

If they can’t find that final puzzle piece, the boys from Holy Redeemer will be waiting. A year ago, they finished 5^th in the district with Aaron Hoda, one of their best runners, not in the standings. This time around, they should have Hoda alongside sophomore sensation Bryce Zapusek to give the team a real punch out front. At Foundation, they put five guys at 18:31 or faster on the hilly lay out and, despite the fact that they only have two seniors in their top 7, this young team has run with a lot of poise.

And besides, it’s not like we haven’t seen young teams from District 2 make noise before …