College Freshman (2010-2011): Part II

Best “The 11” Story

Unionville’s Champions

In 2009, Unionville had a sneaky good XC team. They were real contenders out of District One and ended up posting two state medalists in Matt Fischer and Glenn Burkhardt (TRD fans may notice those names look familiar). At the time, Fischer was a better known name than Burkhardt, but neither were considered truly elite until the time track season finished up. Fischer battled injuries for a good portion of his senior year, but when it clicked, I’d say he was happy with the results. He clocked one of the biggest jaw-droppers in state history-a 9:03.01 3200. But we talked about that in last year’s post. Let’s take a look at Glenn.

Now Glenn had the chance to follow in Matt’s footsteps and was one of the prime contenders for the XC state title out of District One behind the top returner in Chris Campbell. But an injury kept him out of action for all of XC and indoor track. You kind of forgot about him as so many other things started to happen in the distance running universe. But when Glenn finally came back, he was legit from day one. He absolutely dominated the District One Championships, grabbing a second straight gold (look up how many guys have won back to back D1 3200s sometime) and then he knocked off Zach Hebda in Shippensburg keeping the golds in the family at Unionville. The school was responsible for three different state champions in the spring’s longest distance between 2006 and 2011 (see Paul Springer). That’s a pretty remarkable stretch that would have made for a cool story.

CB South DMR

This is another fun story. In 2010, Tom Mallon graduated and officially ended the “Tom Mallon” era at CB South (thank you captain obvious). But that didn’t mean his legacy was over. The CB South boys had picked up a few things from Mallon (and they have a pretty good coach as well) so they were ready to attack the season. Austin Gregor became a state medalist and the team’s 800 core excelled (they grabbed another 4x8 state medal for the trophy case). But I think the coolest story is their DMR.

Now the DMR had some skills the prior year (state medalists, impressive in the TFCAofGP), but Mallon was largely credited with their success. In 2011, they proved that this was a complete team effort. At the Meet of Champs, South stacked a DMR and managed a 10:50.30 mark. They had been hoping for more as that time wasn’t quite under the state qualifying guideline. As fate would have it, the PTFCA decided to expand the field to 13 teams, giving CB South a chance to compete in a race they otherwise would not have been able to. As the #11 seed, South overachieved, taking 5^th overall and posting a time of 10:32.05. They were just 4 seconds out of the gold medal position, despite the fact that their two best legs were on the double. Shortly thereafter, at the New Balance Indoor Nationals in New York they lowered their time to 10:31.03 which may have been just enough to sneak into the Penn Relays field. They were the last squad accepted into the 19 team field.

After a 7:53.78 4x800m performance at the CB West Relays, South had to feel confident. But could they knock off the great that had run history making times at indoor nationals? Let alone the other top PA squads? Don’t worry, of course I’m going to tell you.

Joey Waddington set the tone with a brilliant 1200 leg. He clocked a time of 3:07.53 and put CBS in a crowded front pack. No other PA squad was within 8 seconds of the team at that point. I’ve said it before, but Waddington has to be one of the best pure 1200 guys we’ve seen. He was legit in other events (low 4:20s in the mile, 1:56ish in the 800), but in the 12 the guy was a natural from day one. After Joey, the middle legs were manned by Ryan Hynes and Ryan Dickson. The Ryans combined for 51.11 and 1:58.06. While neither leg was mind-blowing in and out of itself, they came against a bunched and crowded group. Ultimately, when both Ryan’s handed off the baton, South was in 2^nd place and only trailed the NJ super power Christian Brother’s Academy.

In a pack of near four, Austin Gregor got the baton for South. While Gregor had been solid to date, he didn’t have any Millrose appearances or national qualifying marks individually. But he was a strong, tough miler who was ready for a fight. As the other runners failed to hang on the pace, Gregor stayed at the front and even challenged CBA for the lead before the battle finally ended with CBA edging away on the final lap to win 10:13.04 to 10:15.46. CB South ran a massive relay best and one of the best times we had seen within the decade. It was one heck of a performance.

What’s crazy is that many of those same teams ended up competing at the national championships at year end. St. Benedict’s (anchored by Ed Cheserek) went from running 10:22 at Penn down to 9:51 in Greensboro to win the national championship over West Windsor (9:54 from 10:25 at Penn). Also involved were Ridgewood (10:18 to 10:06), Warwick (10:34 to 10:02), Shaker (10:37 to 10:19).

The top PA DMR squad at Nationals ended up being Chesnut Hill Academy (who didn’t even medal at indoor states) who won the slow heat behind a 4:13.24 anchor leg by Dustin Wilson and helped lead CHA to 10^th overall with a 10:15.49. CB South was 11^th in 10:18.41 after racing in the fast heat.

Tommy Gruschow

The Trinity senior was dominant during his final year of high school. As a junior, Gruschow was just 41^st at the state championships in XC making him the #17 returner within his classification. That race was a strong performance for him as well-he had been 21^st the previous week at districts. But as a senior, Gruschow turned it up a notch. After placing 31^st at Carlisle in 16:58, Gruschow won the Cumberland County, District 3 and then the State Championships. He saved his best for last with a 16:30 over the Hershey hills. Tommy was sitting in 4^th place at two miles but timed his kick perfectly and stole the championship over the last stretch to outduel AJ Limongelli by a second.

Despite his gold medal on the trails, Gruschow’s real legendary status came on the track. Tommy was consistently busy over the stretch run of the season. At Mid-Penns, racing against large school competition, Gruschow helped lead his 4x8 to second place in a AA meet record of 7:56.88. Gruschow also took second place in the 1600 with 4:19.66 and 3^rd place in the 3200 at 9:31. Finally, Trinity capped off the meet with a 3:23.89 4x4 that was good enough for another bronze in the trophy case. The AA program scored 51 points in the ultra-competitive Mid Penn.

Then came districts. With Gruschow leading the charge, Trinity was dominate. They won the 4x8 in 8:04.29 and the 4x4 in 3:25 (without Tommy this time) while Gruschow added 3 individual gold medals with wins in the 3200, 1600 and 800.

What would Tommy have for an encore? At states, he opted for the 4x8-16-4x4 triple (he tried to add the 8 but was too tired to pursue all 4). Things started with a blazing 4x800 race. Lewisburg Area, who had run 7:57 in the prelims, pushed the pace with a balanced attach. But Gruschow poured everything he had into his anchor carry. Running about 1:53, he carried Trinity through the line in 2^nd place with one of the best AA relays of all time at 7:51.46 to Lewisburg’s 7:50.66. After that race, Gruschow seemed very tired for his 1600 run. Would he have anything left? Tommy almost toppled to the track mid race before making a late surge and kicking away from future two-time state champ Ryan Smathers with a 4:17.90 for the gold. Trinity then capped off the meet with a 3:24.90 victory in the 4x4, getting some vengeance on Lewisburg by 0.36 seconds.

Fun side note, Gruschow’s running mate on those relays was Derek Pawlush, a very talented 800 runner, while the Lewisburg relays were led by the Olenginski twins. Those three runners ended up all attending Franklin & Marshall, a D3 school in my conference the next year and went on to rewrite the record books in the 4x8 with those three guys leading the charge.

Best Race

I’m going to be honest, I’ve rolled through pretty much every state championship race from this year. My personal favorites were the 4x800m outdoors (Manley runs down Abington), the indoor 800m (Endress on the double) and the AAA 1600m. That last one hasn’t been touched on quite yet, but I’m saving it for the next post because (spoiler alert) it has a pretty significant name at the front of the results.

Biggest “What If”

Injuries

Man, the injuries sucked this year. Endress was banged up and, after a brilliant indoor season, wasn’t quite at full strength for outdoors. Wade still took 4^th and 3^rd in the 16 and 8, but you wonder if he could have pushed Cho (a 1:50 guy) or Magaha (a 4:07 guy) to faster times or even won the race himself and dropped a better mark on his own. Meanwhile, Kyle Moran of Abington was dinged up and, although he ran incredibly clutch in the big moment, it would have been cool to see Moran mixing it up at the front of the open 800 fields the same way he was indoors (and have him and Manley both anchor head to head). Then there’s Mike May from the state champs at CB West. If they had kept him in the fray, could West have made a better push at the state record? Or at least Wissahickon’s old record of 7:36?

The spin off to this would be-what if we saw Connor Manley race fresh head to head against Hong Cho? They raced head to head at districts and Cho dropped a 1:50.92 to Manley’s 1:51.50, but Connor had already anchored West to gold earlier in the day (although he could somewhat coast in that one). Would have been cool to see if those guys could have maybe challenged the 1:50 mark.

Spinning off that, it was pretty windy at the state championship final for 800 meters. Cho “only” ran 1:52 to pick up the win and nobody else was under that. Hong had been running 1:52 with his eyes closed by that point, so you’d have to imagine in better conditions this race could have been a 1:50-1:51 type race with faster performances from a lot of state medalists.

My Personal Best Running Moment

I’m not sure there was any one moment that stands out from my freshman year of college. There were definitely some cool moments, including my first time trial under the lights after a good summer of mileage, but I’m not sure there was a signature highlight. I think the biggest thing for me was the transformation of being a high schooler who didn’t really know much about how training and mileage all worked to taking my training (and my thoughts about training) up to a whole other level. It’s tricky because you have to balance that newfound knowledge with the tendency to obsess about every little thing.

PA’s Fastest Seniors

800m (1:55.00)

1. Hong Cho, Wissahickon 1:50.41

2. Luke Lefebure, Henderson 1:51.08*

3. Connor Manley, CB West 1:51.50

4. Wade Endress, Altoona 1:51.73i

5. Kyle Moran, Abington 1:52.81i

6. Andy Flynn, Cumberland Valley 1:53.36

7. Brandon Krszal, West Allegheny 1:53.65

8. Mato Bekelja, Hershey 1:53.70*

9. Alex Sheltzer, Friend’s Central 1:54.31

10. Nate McClafferty, Conrad Weiser 1:54.65

11. Evan Gomez, Butler 1:54.82

12. Matt McGarvey, CB West 1:54.8h

1600m (4:17.00)

1. Nate McClafferty, Conrad Weiser 4:11.37

2. Wade Endress, Altoona 4:11.87ic

3. Ryan Gil, North Allegheny 4:12.24c

4. Ed Schrom, Central Dauphin 4:14.66

5. Chris Campbell, CR North 4:14.93*

6. Glenn Burkhardt, Unionville 4:16.02c

7. Matt Dallago, Perkiomen Valley 4:16.15

8. Mahdi Koliso, Glen Mills 4:16.23

9. Matthew Groff, Hempfield 4:16.77

10. Logan Mohn, Governor Mifflin 4:16.87

3200m (9:20.00)

1. Ryan Gil, North Allegheny 9:03.87*

2. Glenn Burkhardt, Unionville 9:07.53

3. Zach Hebda, North Hills 9:07.93

4. Jacob Kildoo, Grove City 9:09.41*

5. Reece Ayers, Tunkhannock 9:12.47*

6. Joe Kush, North Hills 9:12.91*

7. Juris Silenkis, North Hills 9:15.11*

8. Ian Barnhill, DT West 9:15.48

9. Paul DeGregorio, Baldwin 9:16.12

10. Tom Trainer, LaSalle 9:16.72*

11. Evan Gomez, Butler 9:17.09

4x800m (7:47.00)

1. Abington 7:37.79

2. CB West 7:38.97 (May, McGarvey, Bee, Manley)

3. CB West 7:41.51 (Metzler, McGarvey, Bee, Manley)

4. LaSalle 7:47.93