Penn Relays Accepted Individuals

You can find a full list of accepted entries at the following link: http://pa.milesplit.com/articles/125448-penn-relays-high-school-individual-acceptances

I'm going to give a brief run down of what things look like for the kids from PA. In the mile our state will be represented by Sam Ritz of Germantown Academy and Jaxson Hoey, the sophomore from Malvern Prep. Ritz gets in likely because of his 4:16 from Nationals and his 4:11 bombshell last year at the distance festival. It will be interesting to see if Sam can drop a nice mark here as he seemed to be gaining momentum at the end of indoors this season after a terrific ending to his sophomore campaign. His brother ran 4:23 a year ago at the Penn Relays.

As for Jaxson Hoey he will toe the line as only a sophomore with a 4:16 full mile PR from indoor nationals. He also boasts a top 4 finish at the state meet in the mile and some strong 800m marks thus far this outdoor season. Hoey seems to get better every race he runs and he has developed a nice kick and a strong reputation on the PA scene. I'm not sure if this stage will be a bit over his head, but as just a sophomore there is a lot of potential for Hoey to do some special things in the next few months. Both Ritz and Hoey are part of not PIAA affiliated schools so we will see neither at the state meet.

It's interesting to me to note that these were the only PA boys selected for the race. Russell would have definitely gotten in had he tried and so this confirms what we already knew: Henderson will be going after the DMR title at Penn. O'Hara, too, should have a complete A team out there as James and Belfatto each probably could have gotten in to the Penn Relays pool in the 3k and mile respectively. Ross Wilson decided for the 3k over the Mile (a decision I support wholeheartedly) and there were few top times dropped in the early season because of the weather. I am curious if someone like Bilotta or Caldwell entered into this field and was rejected or if perhaps they prefered to save up their energy for a relay effort in the DMR or 4x8. Mike Higgins of Don Bosco, currently listed as the #18 and final accepted entry, has an indoor season best for the mile at 4:18 and change and a 1600m best of 4:16.09. Those marks put him fairly close to someone like Caldwell (4:18.80) but I suppose it may be a touch faster when you convert that 16 up to a full mile.

Believe it or not, last year PA had 4 representatives in the mile at the Penn Relays: Ben Ritz, Curt Jewett, Joe Logue and Connor Harriman. Sean McGorty led the way with a meet record time of 4:04. He is running for Stanford these days.

The 3k will have some strong PA representation as well as we managed to get 4 guys into the race after having 8 a year ago including eventual champion Max Norris. Ross Wilson of Council Rock North (8:29 last year for 8th) is joined by Colin Martin from Fox Chapel, Dominic Deluca of Dallas and Jake Brophy of CB East.

Colin Martin is the state champion from indoors at 3000m and will look to follow in the footsteps of guys like Max Norris and Bobby Micikas who won both the state title and the Penn Relays title in the 3k. Mark Dennin from Boyertown is also a recent PA 3k champ from 2008. He went on to win the outdoor title at 3200m after losing out on the title indoors. Martin comes in with some extremely impressive recent marks. He ran 8:30.82 at states and followed it up with a 14:49 5k that showed excellent strength. He will be a great 5k/10k type at the collegiate level I believe. However, at 3k he is going to need to show a bit more speed than he has thus far. He has about a 4:18 PR for 1600m whcih is solid, but if he runs well under 8:30, I expect we see something more in the 4:12-4:14 range from C Mart in the not too distant future (assuming he can find the right race). In a fast race where Martin gets to show off his strength, he can run the 8:25ish mark that Norris did, things just need to get out hard. Worth noting, Martin has experience on the Penn Relays scene: he ran 8:37.88 last year for 18th place (yes 8:37.88 gets you just 18th at the Penn Relays, I couldn't believe it either).

Ross Wilson is the PA guy with a lot of momentum right now. He had a very strong finish to indoors at arguably some serious under distance at the mile as Ross may be best suited for a 5k role down the line. Right now, however, I think his sweet spot appears to be at 3k based on the way his training has been going. Last year at Penn when Wilson dropped his 8:29 he started an unreal stretch of consistently impressive distance races en route to his state runner up finish. I think he may start to pick up similar momentum this year at Penn. He ran 8:37 in crappy conditions last weekend and he finished his indoor season by dropping a massive PR at 4:15.09y which is worth somewhere in the 4:13s for 1600m. That is a weapon that will serve him well in championship races such as this. I think Wilson can do big things in front of the crowd at Penn.

Dominic Deluca of Dallas ran gutsy indoors after the pace got going at states and he just couldn't quite hold that back breaking pace. But Deluca will be back with a vengenace for this race. He grabbed a state title in cross country and showed strong mile wheels indoors winning against a strong field at Lehigh. That's a nice combination of pieces on your resume. I think Deluca was in better shape than the 8:42 he ran at states and I believe he will show that at Penn if he has a good day.

Jake Brophy was my bold sleeper pick to snag the indoor state title at 3k. Perhaps that was a bit premature, but I'm still driving the Brophy bandwagon. He has likely been running some solid legs on relays from CB East who just dropped an 8 flat 4x8. He may run the 4x8 prelims at the beginning of the day at Penn which may put a little junk in his legs, but if he is feeling good and feeling fast, he is a very impressive kick that he showed off at states. He went from out of the picture to almost second in a blink of an eye. I'm not sure if Brophy is ready to handle 8:30 pace, but if he relaxes at the beginning and lets the race come to him, he could run around 8:35 for sure. He is just a sophomore on a very big stage so nothing will come easy for him, but I think he has all the tools to run a nice PR.

Unfortunately Patrick Reilly and Matt McGoey were likely a second or two away from getting in to Penn. I'm a big fan of both those guys and I think this close call will be the perfect motivation to go attack the outdoor season. Both of these guys are sub 9:20 guys in the right race. Kevin James, as discussed above, passed off his ticket to the 3k in favor of the DMR. That allowed Brophy to get the last spot in. I'm not sure who Jake should send the thank you card to, James for passing on a 3k race where he could run low 8:30s or faster or Jim Belfatto who ran the killer 4:11 anchor leg that made O'Hara one of the best DMR teams of all time and made it easy for James to pass up a 3k opportunity where he could run low 8:30s or faster.

I think PA has put a very intriguing group of runners on the line for Penn and I am really looking forward to seeing some of these young stars continue to blossom as well as some of these older studs continue to establish their legacy on the PA high school track scene.

I can't wait for the relay entrants to be finalized either.