by Jarrett Felix
In 2016
the PTFCA changed the order at the Pennsylvania Indoor State Meet to allow
schools to enter both the distance medley relay and the 4x800 meter relay at
the indoor state championships. Prior to that, the relays were run back to back
and schools had to make a choice. It’s also worth noting that, starting in
2015, there were no longer automatic qualifying times for the state
championships. Instead, you had to be in the top submitted entries for the
relays to make it to states.
Based
on what I can see on the website, they are bumping the 4x800 up to 16 teams
which would imply two heats of this event for the first time since the switch
from absolute standards to relative standards. That’s a huge swing as the 4x8
easily had the biggest discrepancy between actual cut-off times and “guideline
times” that the PTFCA puts out there to help coaches keep track of where they
are at. I’m thrilled to see this and hope it holds. For the record, it also
appears they have lowered the DMR guideline time down to 10:43.23 which is
pretty darn quick. It looks like this is the only distance time that been
adjusted. Under no circumstances does the PTFCA want two heats of the longest
track event of the championships.
When
this new rule was introduced a year ago, I speculated a lot about what it could
mean in a post on this very blog.
Now, with a little extra data we can dig in a tiny bit more to the points I
made at the time and compare them to what has actually been happening. My #1
concern at the time of the rule change was the fact that coaches would be able
to run “B” teams in relays they had qualified in and, therefore, one school’s “B”
team could jump another school’s “A” team in the standings and unfairly take
the place of a better school that would be more deserving of the spot. Because
there are no absolute qualifying times, this is not a victimless crime.
This unequivocally
happened. If you watched the races or looked at the results, it’s not hard to
pick out where it happened. But, just like I said at the time, I don’t blame
the coaches for this at all. If I was a coach, it’s exactly what I would do because
I’d want as many of my personal athletes as possible to be competing at states.
That’s part of my job as being a coach. But I feel bad for the other coaches
that were left out whose job it is to get their athletes to states.
Allegedly,
the PTFCA had told schools that if they ran “B” relays, they would be banned
from participating in the relays the next year. So we will see if certain schools
find themselves outside of the qualifying list for no apparent reason, but I
doubt this will happen. It’s an especially complicated issue because we don’t
know exactly what defines a “B” team. For example, CB East did not run their
star Jake Brophy on the 4x8 relay at indoor states, however, the relay they did
run was still more than deserving of a spot. They hung tough in the second half
of the race and ended up finishing a very close 9th (prior to a DQ).
Technically, I’d assume this relay was not the same 4 guys as the relay that
qualified, but it’s also not fair to say this team wasn’t state championship
worthy. However, by the same token, there were probably other teams that were
left home who could have potentially be state championship worthy if they had the
chance to prove themselves and maybe those teams had faster qualifying times
during the regular season than this specific CB East relay did.
And I
don’t mean to single out CB East here. I could go through and list everyone who
put out a B team, but I’d rather not get into that. I can tell you that it’s
probable that 3 4x800 teams and 2 DMR schools swapped out at least one of their
critical legs that had helped them qualify for the meet. CB East is just an
interesting case because their “B” team was so good it’s hard to say it wasn’t
an “A” team. They are exactly the kind of team that makes any rules surrounding
“B” teams so difficult to enforce.
But ignoring
the fairness component of this whole thing, let’s talk about how the new rule
actually affected results. Unsurprisingly, a lot of teams qualified for both
relays. Unsurprisingly, basically every team who qualified for both, entered
both (I believe Seneca Valley was the only exception, although they were
definitely a borderline case in the 4x8). In total, we had 7 teams compete in
both relays: O’Hara, Germantown Friends, State College, CB West, CB East,
LaSalle and Pennridge. Considering the relays were slated to be limited to 12
entries, that would be over 50% of the fields overlapping compared to 0% in
previous years. That’s a pretty big swing. That also means 7 distance programs
were cut out of the state meet (at least on the relay side) compared to last
year as those 7 overlapping spots would have gone to another team in a one
distance relay system.
But those
teams that doubled up on the relays were very strong programs and most of them
pursued both relays with everything they had. O’Hara, GFS, State College, CB West
and LaSalle all had top individuals who scratched from the meet so that they
could chase relay glory. Guys like Alex Milligan and Nick Dahl both skipped the
individual events to pull double duty on the relays even though they could have
potentially been state champions. GFS, State College and CB West also finished
among the top 5 teams in both events.
The
adjusted schedule definitely made things interesting as well. Because the 4x8
and the mile were so close, no runner attempted the 4x8-mile double in 2016. I
think we had one in 2015 and about 5 in 2014. In fact, the number of individual
medalists who also participated on either of the two relays was surprisingly
small. In the mile, only one of the nine medalists competed on a relay and none
of the entrants in the mile ended up leaving the meet with a medal in the
relays. In 2014, the top 8 finishers in the mile were all on medal winning
relays later in the race.
I also
found it interesting that, out of those who participated in the 4x8, only Jake
Good of Abington (20th) participated in the open 800 meters. That
blows my mind. But to be fair, there were only three overlapping individuals in
2015 (4th, 14th, and 15th). In 2014, it looks
like there were about 8 participants in both the open 8 and the 4x8.
So that’s
the thing. We are dealing with a combination of issues. From 2014 to 2015, they
changed the entries from an absolute standard to a relative standard, therefore
potentially limited entries in certain events. The event hit hardest by this
cut in 2015 was the 4x800 which went from 23 teams down to 12. Then from 2015
to 2016, they opened up a second distance relay which further limited the
individual opportunities distance runners had.
I think
part of the problem is, a lot of runners are unselfish. They want to put the
team ahead of their own individual goals. I think that’s really cool and really
admirable. But what was nice about the old set up was that all the distance relays
were at the end of the meet and all the individual events came before it. If
you were strong enough, you could take a shot at an individual event and then
still come back to help out your teammates (who might not have gotten there
without you) in a relay. The doubles were easier because there was extra time
in between relays, in large part thanks to the 4x8 giving mile-DMR guys a
little extra rest. Now I feel like top guys who have solid relays are going to
feel some sort of obligation to do both. Our relays will be stronger, but the
individual events are going to make a little sacrifice.
And
although the relays will be stronger, I think we all saw that the 4x8-DMR
double is a difficult one. O’Hara pulled off a terrific upset at the state
championships thanks, at least in part, to their fresh anchor Ryan James. Now O’Hara
proved their win was no fluke when they broke 10:20 at the Penn Relays during
outdoors, but their indoor state championship was still fairly unprecedented.
If you look at the other recent champions you have the following …
2015 –
O’Hara, Kevin James 4:12 miler on anchor (state runner up to state record)
2014 –
Henderson, Tony Russell 4:09 guy on 1200 (state champ indoors)
2013 –
LaSalle, Tom Coyle 4:11 guy on anchor (state champ)
2012 –
Great Valley, Ned Willig 4:11/1:51 guy on lead off (state champ indoors)
2011 –
Wissahickon, Hong Cho 1:50 guy on lead off (state champ)
2010 –
Henderson, Will Kellar 4:12 guy on anchor (state champ)
2009 –
Upper Dublin, Mike Palmisano 4:13 guy on anchor (state champ)
2008 –
LaSalle, Dan Lowry 4:12 guy on anchor (non-PIAA)
I mean
look at that list! The O’Hara guys were awesome, consistent and gutsy on race
day. But their best legs don’t boast the same firepower as some of these other
schools. And considering they were being chased by a 4:10 guy (Alex Milligan,
future state champ) and a 4:08 split guy (Nick Dahl) history told us one of those
guys was supposed to win.
But you
know what, this is a sample size of just one. Teams pull upsets. Top guys from
top teams rotate. A lot of things change from year to year. It’s hard to say
that everything is correlated to everything else just from small chunks worth
of data.
Let’s
see how this rule plays out in 2017.
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