2017 State Recap: 3200m

3200m

AA

In a highly anticipated rematch, WPIAL stand outs Ben Bumgarner and Zach Skolnekovich took center stage in the boy’s first distance final. As many expected, these two broke away from the field early and established things as a two man race. It almost seemed as if Bumgarner and Skolnekovich were trading off the laps so that neither had to do all the work through the first few laps. Eventually, Bumgarner thought it was time to put his foot down and, just as was the case during XC, he powered away from Skolnekovich and ended up storming to a very quick 9:10.58. Skolnekovich, perhaps with an eye on the 1600, came home over 10 seconds later in 9:21. This marks a new PR for Bumgarner and actually eclipses the winning time of Hockenbury a year ago. Ben’s mark is the second fastest AA 3200 victory in the last 11 seasons as he trials only the 9:08 from Hockenbury’s junior year. This also marked the second gold of the season for Bumgarner and, as noted on the broadcast, if he hadn’t fallen indoors, maybe he could have completed the very difficult XC-3k-3200 triple gold.

The talk before the race centered on just two guys, but after the dust settled a lot of runners proved they were ready for a big PR on race day. Four runners finished within a second and half of one another, including 3 juniors. All of them ran big PRs. Brenden Miller of Upper Dauphin led the way in 3^rd place with a 9:28. Andrew Stanley was one of the biggest surprises, boldly chasing the fast pace early and putting on a big kick to run 9:29.06 and beat out Zachary Wortman, the lone senior of the bunch, by .01. Miller and Stanley both compete in the A classification for XC and, although neither of them were state medalists a year ago, they each should be in the conversation for a top 10 finish next year. 8 of the top 10 finishers from the fall are graduating this year.

A pair of freshman grabbed top 11 spots as Andrew Healey and Ben Hoffman took 9^th and 11^th respectively, Healy running a time of 9:50. Healy, running for Holy Cross, is a very interesting name to watch in the year’s ahead. His performance at states is one of the best we’ve seen since the aforementioned Dominic Hockenbury of Lake Lehman. Hock went on to become a 3 time state champ in this event. Hoffman was the top freshman from A during cross country season and comes from a great program (his team was 2^nd at states in XC with four returners in their top five).

AAA

It was a crowded field as the AAA 3200 competitors took to the track. Rusty Kujdych of Neshaminy helped control the pace early, but the pace was far from suicidal, out in the mid to high 4:30s. That put lots of guys in position to PR with even splits and top guys could get PRs with a slight increase to their tempo on the final laps. That was where Nate Henderson came in as the JP McCaskey senior went to the lead when the moment felt right to track and break free of the pack. Henderson’s kick has come a long way in the past few seasons and the confidence in his speed allowed him to wait early and conserve some energy.

However, the slower early pace looked like a big advantage for Sam Affolder of Carlisle. The 4:08 man had run just 9:20 so far in the spring, but many speculated he could pop a big time in this race. He lurked in the shadow of Henderson before moving up as the pair began to break away. Affolder prepared for the final lap sprint as the clock read about 8 minutes. Once Affolder went to the lead, I thought the race might be over. Sam seemed to be measuring himself on the backstretch, but once Henderson came up to challenge, he surged away and went into a powerful sprint. I honestly thought he might charge home in a crazy fast final lap split and get within spitting distance of Brehm’s record time from two year earlier while Henderson seemed to be fading out of the picture.

But on the home straight, Henderson rallied for one last kick and dug down to find the gear to go by Affolder. In an eerily similar finish to the Tony Russell-Ross Wilson race of 2014, Henderson passed Affolder halfway up the last straight and, although Sam tried to respond, he couldn’t match his opponent’s top end speed. It’s unclear whether Affolder mistimed his move or let his foot off the gas a little too early, perhaps thinking of the 1600 finals he would be running a little later on. Regardless, Sam ran a fantastic race and left with a huge spring PR of 9:02.95. It also ranks as one of the fastest ever sophomore 3200s in the state’s history, seemingly only trailing Nick Dahl of GFS.

Meanwhile, Nate Henderson dropped a new PR of 9:01.77 and become one of the state’s top 25 3200 performers ever. He also clinched a second straight gold in the state’s longest distance event, making him the first person to win the indoor 3k and the outdoor 3200 since Jason Weller in 2007.

The efforts by Henderson, Affolder and Kujdych (a strong PR of his own at 9:04.55), led to some big breakthroughs across the board. Connor McMenamin cut some 7 seconds off his personal best while Zach Lefever cut about the same amount of time. Noah Beveridge and Ryan James jumped from PRs above 9:20 to PRs below 9:10. In total, the top 12 finishers in the race all ran a personal best of some sort and 11 guys broke the 9:20 barrier.

Another interesting fact that I believe Forrest alluded to earlier is the fact that this top group matched almost exactly to the top group at XC states. Although not unprecedented (or unexpected), it was wild to see that, if you remove Noah Affolder from the fall’s results, things mapped like this:

Henderson 1^st in XC -> 1^st in 3200

Affolder 2^nd in XC -> 2^nd in 3200

Lefever 3^rd in XC ->6^th in 3200

Beveridge 4^th in XC -> 5^th in 3200

McMenamin 5^th in XC -> 4^th in 3200

Campbell 6^th in XC -> 8^th in 3200

James 7^th in XC -> 7^th in 3200

Provenzo 8^th in XC -> 9^th in 3200

Kujdych 9^th in XC -> 3^rd in 3200

So the top 9 without Noah all mapped into the top 9 of this 3200.

Next year, Sam Affolder will be moving to Virginia which means our top returners are Rusty Kujdych and Noah Beveridge. Beveridge is our top returner from XC. Both guys are big talents who showed a lot of potential in their junior seasons. For Beveridge, his clutch ability was on full display. In the fall, he went from mid-tier to top 5 runner in the state in seemingly a blink of an eye. Similarly, he overcame a solid but not amazing indoor season, to run big PRs at Baldwin, then districts, then states. The guy turned it on for the two biggest stages and left with a pair of 5^th place finishes.

Big shout out to Mark Provenzo. He was the WPIAL champ during XC and a top 3200 runner a year ago, but while dedicating a lot of energy to a talented 4x8, his 3200 times were not quite in line with the expectations he had built for himself with his past success. But at the most important meet of the year, he went for it as the #19 seed, mixed it up at the front of the field and hung on for a clutch 9:16. He ended up just outside the medals but deserves a lot of credit for his big race.

11 guys under 9:20 is also way up there in terms of state all time depth. Matt D’Aquila of Lower Merion was the last guy to break the barrier, PRing for a second straight week at 9:17. It was the fastest 11^th place finish since Brad Miles, the reigning XC state champ, ran a 9:15 to take 11^th in the blazing 2010 state championship field. In addition to D’Aquila, some other names really shined further down the depth chart. Stephen Paul ran a terrific race in 9:29.1, cutting over 25 seconds off his district time. Mitchell Etter of State College overcame an injury that ended his XC career to break 9:30 for the second time and finish as the 4^th best returner for next year’s edition of the race.