The State Landscape - December

By Jarrett Felix

One month of the season is in the books and, although it’s not typically the most telling month of the season, we’ve already learned a lot about what we can expect as the indoor season heats up as the weather continues to cool down. Here’s an event by event look at what jumped out to me in the first month of the indoor season.

4x800m

One of my personal favorite tidbits of news to start the year, was the announcement that the 4x800 field would be expanded from 12 schools to 16. This is great news for relay hopefuls, compensates a bit for the drop off in distance competitors from the past two seasons and brings the state qualifying guideline a bit more in line with what the actual cut off will be. The SQG the past two seasons has been 8:19.66 but the actual cut off has ended up at 8:12.83 and 8:12.10 the past two seasons with a massive amount of teams left home who were comfortably under the SQG.

This should make an already exciting event even better as the door is now open for some teams who run on slower tracks or at fewer meets (like the D3/D7 schools) a better chance to sneak in. I’m hoping that this expanded field will give a chance for a team like Seneca to get in to the state meet. The Myers twins both ran at the Armory this past weekend indicating that at least the fastest two members of the school’s state champion 4x8 are going to be getting after things this winter.

Although Abington is the PA #1 school as of the writing of this post, I’d say Pennsbury and CB East have been most impressive to me so far. Pennsbury came out the gates very fast with an 8:16.81 in their opening meet. They defeated LaSalle, CR North and CB West in that race, three squads that medaled at states in this event last spring and return some monster pieces. 8:16 on a flat track in December is very quick and could mean Pennsbury is a state title contender this year. CB East posted an 8:19 with a pretty balanced relay squad. They have at least one guy who wasn’t featured on the relay that should help create some intersquad competition (Will Schulz) and they have three relay members who were sub 2 types a year ago in Motter, Endres and Shahideh.

In terms of teams that can put something strong together in the not so distant future, I’d keep an eye out for State College (stunner) who has already had 3 2:05 or faster performers, Penn Wood who has some nice pieces, William Tennent who has a pair of studs and Upper Darby. Darby is probably one of the best teams at putting it together at Meet of Champs to get to states and they have two awesome legs in Syed Shah and Jarnail Dhillon.

Lastly, I’ll just mention SJ Prep again. Miles Green has already run two 800s this year so he seems ready to give this team a strong relay carry. We haven’t seen McClellan yet (1:53 best), but it tentatively looks like this team is preparing to give the 4x8 a go.

Mile

Thus far, it looks like many top names from the mile could be scratches long term depending on who the relays shake out. It’s still very early, but of the top 20 names in the state, I’d expect roughly 8 to scratch based on their current qualifying position. But at the top, the best runners should be sticking around. Josh Hoey of Bishop Shanahan is already asserting himself as a #1 runner with his 4:17. Keep in mind, even during Josh’s magical season a year ago (he was state runner-up indoors and Penn Relays champ outdoors), he didn’t break 4:17 until Penn Relays when he dropped his 4:11.90.

Tristan Forsythe, another junior is also off to an impressive start. His 4:20 at the Armory, not far removed from his NXN performance, was very encouraging. His XC season was awesome and he is a state medal winner from last indoors in this event. Other guys who really impressed me in the early going were Joe Breen from Souderton (a strong 4:37 in his first meet), Thomas Matsumura from Southern Lehigh (4:31 mile at the Armory) and Brendan O’Toole of North Penn (4:36.91 win at Burdette). Matsumura and the Southern Lehigh boys are particularly intriguing to me. They were big surprises at the District 11 XC Championships, where they grabbed the second state qualifying spot, and so far this indoor season they have continued to impress.

800m

Nick Wagner has been off to a fast start this winter. He’s already raced three different meets all across the region. The Penn Trafford Senior is not waiting around for the Western part of the state to get moving and it’s paid off with a 1:56.91 at the Armory. That was pretty close to the mark of fellow western Mike Kolor during the same meet last year. Wagner is currently over 3 seconds ahead of the next fastest guys in the state, even with the flat to bank conversion applied.

However, Wagner’s advantage isn’t as massive as it seems. Kamil Jihad and Logan Yoquinto have both run 1:23 for 600 on banked tracks and are currently sitting at #2 and #3 on the PA performance list (and SJP’s Robert Dupell has run even faster for 600, but yet to run an 8). Jihad and Yoquinto are both big talents as juniors, but Jihad is much more of a household name. He ran 1:52 low last spring chasing Domenic Peretta during DP’s record setting run. Yoquinto has had some strong anchor performances, but has yet to drop anything in the open 8 that is significantly under 2 minutes.

Another game changer could be Matt Eissler of Pennridge. He’s just a sophomore, but he’s a super talented guy. He ran a 1:55 split as a freshman and looked great battling with Jihad at Burdette. Plus, he’s in a Pennridge system that has been fantastic at churning out mid-distance studs. Eissler could potentially be the next Tom Mallon when all is said and done (yeah, that’s probably too bold for this early in the young kid’s career, but I’ll throw it out there).

Lurking so far is Peter Cooke of Radnor (really strong racer), Hudson Delisle of Quakertown (another member of the absurd class of 2018 800 crew) and Christopher Cameron of Wissahickon (think this kid could be a strong sleeper).

In a few weeks, we will probably be talking about Nick Feffer for the win in this race (although he will definitely be running a 4x8 first unlike the majority of his competition). He ran a 2:01.8 on the double already this season with what seems like not a ton of urgency. He’s an elite talent.

3,000m

Is it weird to start of the 3k discussion talking about a guy who hasn’t run a 3k yet? Of course. But Rusty Kujdych has been awesome to start the year and, considering his resume, I’m betting he will be atop this leader board soon. Kujdych ran 2:01 and 4:30 in his first two meets, using a front running style to excel. He made huge waves a year ago as a sophomore when he dipped under 8:50 and all signs indicate he’s significantly faster and stronger. Remember, he was a dominant XC force down the stretch up until a slight off day at states. He could have been a factor for a top 10-20 spot at Footlocker Regionals, but he passed on that to focus on track. So far, the decision is paying off. As of now, he may be my early pick to win this event come states.

But returning state medalist Seth Slavin will have something to say about it. Slavin ran 9:37 for 2 miles to start of his indoor campaign, putting him atop the current state leaderboard. According to milesplit conversions, that mark is worth roughly 8:55 for 3k. Freshman Carlos Shultz of Conestoga is 2^nd on the current rankings if you can believe that. His 9:48 from the Ocean Breeze facility on Staten Island slots him just ahead of Matt Scarpill according to PTFCA conversions.

Overall, this event is still hungry for some breakout stars. This is likely due to a lot of big names having long falls after competing at regionals (PA killed it across the board) so I am happy to be patient as everyone regains some of that fitness. Sean Rahill and Avery Lederer are two of the more impressive results at this distance I’ve seen so far. Also a shout out to Ryan Leahan who is having a nice year both on the trails and the track.

DMR

The talk in the preseason (and even a couple days ago) centered around the big name teams with the big name aspirations. But remember, a year ago the super power Downingtown West decided not to run their “A” team in the DMR and, in the end, the team from Cardinal O’Hara stunned everybody by springing the upset with a fresh anchor leg and some gutsy front running. The moral of the story: no one hands out state championships based on etrain’s posts in December. No matter how many statistics he throws in.

As of right now, a few teams have gotten out there and raced hard with strong results. HG Prep and Cheltenham are both teams that have been dissed by the new state qualifying system and both teams have come out with a chip on their shoulder this season. Prep just dropped a fantastic 10:47 winning effort in the DMR while Cheltenham rolled to a 10:59 win at Burdette. Those are the only two sub 11 marks so far this indoor campaign. Cheltenham’s anchor Will Griffen is quickly ascending towards star status and dropped a 4:28 mile recently at the Armory. Cheltenham is very strong, seems committed to the relay and is sneaky deep at the distance positions. I’m very high on this squad.

I’m also impressed by the racing I’ve seen from Boyertown. They have run 11:03, putting them 4^th in the state at this point, but they also won their last race without arguably their best runner in Dominic Derafelo. The Bears had a strong XC season and return a young core from a year ago. Remember, a Brett Kelly led Boyertown team nearly stole state gold a few years back. This program knows how to build a strong relay. I’m excited to see how they continue to progress.

The Ches-mont champions West Chester Rustin haven’t spent a ton of time in the spotlight, but they did win their first DMR of the season in early December (over Boyertown) and their anchor leg, Brandon Hontz, looks excellent so far in limited action. He ran a strong 2 flat in the 800 which currently puts him among the state leaders in the event. And, in my opinion, his best event is probably the mile.

CB East has been excellent so far this season as well and they have lots of pieces to play with when building a DMR. I think the 4x8 will be their better relay, but they’ve got a great shot to qualify in both and spread out some of their legs to maximize their medal chances. Will Schulz will be the x-factor here. He dipped under 4:40 in the open mile this past week and has been steadily improving. And he’s got a clutch gene as well, having been one of the critical step up performers two years ago at Districts to help CB East qualify for states.

In terms of what I’ve seen so far, there are a few other teams probably gearing up for a DMR run in the coming weeks. I’d like to see Lower Merion try their hand at the event with solid competition as they’ve had strong performances across the board in recent weeks. McFadden had a nice day at 800 to pair with D’Aquila and Neckowicz among others in the DMR equation. North Penn also has the dudes to throw down a memorable DMR. O’Toole and Santiago are both off to nice starts for them and they dropped a solid 4x8 at Burdette.

And of course, Bishop Shanahan has already shown all the pieces of a state leading DMR. They’ve got the stud anchor in Hoey, a dynamite group of 400 runners, an ace at 800 in Yoquinto and a freshman named Jonah Hoey who ran 4:36 for the mile already this year. That puts him 10^th in the PTFCA rankings when you account for conversions.