Live Opinions on Live Results

You can find live results as they come in on the PIAA website just by clicking through the link found one post below. As I see results I will give you my first reaction to all of them.

800 Thoughts

Some casualities to my medal predictions are in. I lost Maddox and Parsons on the AA side and Austin Cooper on the AAA side. Great seasons for all those guys, it's a shame they couldn't sneak into the final.

Heat 1 of the AA men's 16 ends up considerably slower than Heat 2 (no one under 2 in Heat 1) which allows for a relaxed day by Fletcher and Scullin in a District 4 rematch. Peretta finishes his day 1 with just a 1:57 effort (far off his PR, not far off everybody else's). Goodson was the guy right behind him ready to go.

William Maloney was one of the big surprises to get through to the finals, he went from 2:04 at Districts to 1:58.25 out there at Ship. Excellent run by him and another good sign for guys with D12 backgrounds here.

Wiseman, Francis, Logue, Smart and Cather all advance, meaning the top 5 from indoors will be back for more outdoors in the final. Eli Mercado and Alek Sauer complete strong doubles and get open PRs (Sauer goes under the 1:55 barrier) and get into the final! Big day once again from the Boyertown Bears and strong showing for Sauer of Pennsbury.

Nice bounce back by Becich who unfortunately will just be on the outside looking in. He made a great effort to get back and stay competitive down the stretch. Brett Foster has a great double for District 7 and will be going toe to toe with Wilhoite in the final to see who is the top D7 guy. They will also have to worry about surprise finalist Marcus Smail who dropped a big time 1:55 in his best performance since districts a year ago. Great race by him, he picked the right time to put it all together.

This race is going to be absurdly close tomorrow. Everyone who qualified ran within about 1.5 seconds of one another. Garton barely beat out Cooper for the last finalist spot (less than a tenth of a second) and Becich was just .06 out of 12th as well. 8 different guys ran under 1:55 in just the prelims with a 9th at 1:55.01. Get your popcorn ready for tomorrow.

4x8 Thoughts

Out of my 16 medalists in the AA and AAA 4x8, only lost 8th place Northern Potter on day one so that's pretty good I suppose.

I underestimated Lewisburg. How I overlooked them in my original predictions is beyond me. I'm glad Lakeland got through, I was worried they weren't gonna run a hot relay and that would have been problematic for me. South Williamsport just sneaks through on time after Molino loses twice last week? Interesting to development to monitor especially if you are Dominic Hockenbury.

Wyomissing and Boiling Springs looked quite vulnerable on Day 1. We will see what that means for Day 2 and open events later on today. Washington looked strong, but can somebody give me a good reason for why they won their prelim by almost 10 seconds? Even if your first three legs are running hard, as the anchor you can probably take a few meters off at the end right? I hope that doesn't come back to cost them tomorrow. Running 8:04 is SIGNIFICANTLY faster than running 8:14. Talking 2:01s vs. 2:04.5s for a team that's previous best 4x8 was 8:05 and has no one with an open PR below 2 minutes.

There is also a chance that Washington is about to run low 7:50s with this team if they can cruise to 8:04. Stay tuned.

Good signs for the District 12 boys so far. Their district results were oddly slow but already they send 3 out of the 3 teams that were trying to make the finals in the 4x8 on to the finals (Masterman and Del Val in AA and St. Joe's in AAA). St. Joe's ran a sick 7:54 which was pretty exciting to see. O'Hara didn't put an A team out I'm assuming so I don't count them as an authentic miss.

Here is the thing, teams like Bonner and Radnor really could have benefited from the state spots that Bensalem and O'Hara grabbed and then kinda toyed around with (I'm assuming that Francis didn't run on Bensalem's relay, if that is not the case I apologize). I suppose that O'Hara and Bensalem earned the right to act this way at States because of how they ran at Districts, but you kind feel bad for the teams that would have given it an all out effort that are sitting and home watching. Especially when 8 flat is the last time into the finals.

No hard effort for Brehm or Francis. That makes the open events a tad more exciting. The big benefit will be tomorrow when Carlisle is not in the finals and a relatively fresh Brehm is staring down a tired Tony Russell in the 32.

All 8 of my AAA 4x8 medalists survive and look good, but Boyertown pulls out the biggest surprise. How bout the Bears! This has been a really cool story, these guys kinda came out of no where and Eli Mercado has led them extremely well on the anchor. They drop their relay team all the way down to 7:53 today! Awesome job. Hopefully Mercado isn't too spent for the 8 trials.

1600 Thoughts
Out of my 1600 medalists, 15 of the 16 are still alive with the only omission being Gunnar Sjoreen of Conestoga who I was disappointed to see was the first name out. He got stick in a fast heat and things didn't go perfect, but he had a great season and should be proud.

Russell and Brehm both successfully complete the first step of their doubles. Russell ends up in the faster heat but 4:16 is not really an extremely hard effort for him considering he is likely in 4:07 or faster shape. Ryan Grace proves me wrong in impressive fashion with a solid 4:19. Abert and Belfatto both grab open PRs and put themselves right behind Russell and ready for tomorrow.

Cole Nissley decided to try his luck in the 16 trials (Groh did not) and Nissley's decision pays off. He is through to the finals with a 4:19 PR! Nissley knew the 32 would be loaded and figured he would give both races a shot and see what happens. I like it. Might as well enjoy your last state meet ever, especially when medals are going to be difficult to attain.

This final is going to be really exciting. Brehm is now fresh, Belfatto and Abert look great, Caldwell, Van Kooten and Reiny all looked very solid and Sloan ran a PR.

In the AA prelims, I've said it once already today and now I say it again, Kyle Gonoude winning a heat by almost 7 seconds? Look Gonoude ran a sizable PR and that's pretty cool for him to pick one up, but dropping a massive PR in the prelims when you don't really have to kind of puts you in a tricky spot for the finals.

Perretta and Curtin get through no issue. Those are probably my tentative top 2 right now considering Curtin's 4x8 is out and I thought they could be finalists with his speed on the anchor. But Parsons, Smith and even possibly Gonoude could be right there in the title conversation when the dusty clears. Morgan too if he isn't too tired from the Lakeland's final bound 4x8. Really solid final in this one as well, glad none of the big names had trouble getting through.