Alrighty so here we go another bit of rambling courtesy of train about what I learned looking over the last 200 medalists list. This little post is about the craziness of the state championship picture.
First off I should say despite the overall craziness, there is an element of predictability. District one has won 7 of the last eight titles as a team or individual. I've already outlined the teams that have consistently dominated at the state level. And, as expected seniors do take the most medal spots, by my count 61% of the medalists are seniors, 31% are juniors and the remaining 8% are Sophs.
But there is still a ton of variability to the state meet. Even looking at guys who have done it before can be misleading. As I mentioned there are 78 non senior medalists from the last 8 years. 13 of them came in 2013 (a high number I might add, on average there are more like 10) so we throw those out because those guys haven't returned to Hershey yet.
So out of the 66 returning medalists over the past 7 years, 30/66 didn't improve their position at states the next year and 12 out of 65 did not even medal again the next season (and I didn't even cheat to include dan jaskowak who was a special case). That may not sound like a lot but that means out of our 13 returners this year, the numbers say about 6 of them won't improve on last years performance and 2-3 of them won't end up back on the medal stand. That's pretty crazy.
Here's another fun fact for you to tell your friends about ... Out of the last 8 state champs, only 3 were district champs and all 3 of those guys who won district and state championships also won regional championships. In addition out of the last 8 state champs only 50% have made it to a national championship as an individual. 5/8 2nd placers have and 5/8 3rd placers have. There have also been 3 4th placers, 1 7th placer, 1 11th placer, and 1 18th placer for those keeping score at home.
In other words the numbers suggest the best runner in the state may actually win states only about 50% of the time. That seems low to me, although I do enjoy the variability of it all. And hey, you have to have your day on the day that counts. It's part of being a champion. But you just wonder if the difficulty of the state course adds too much variability for it to be fair.
Another interesting number, over the past 7 years the top returner has won the state championship 3 times, just under 50%. The 13th returner won once, as have #3, #2 and #5.
Here we go on another stat. There have been 16 soph medalists over the last 8 years as I mentioned earlier, about 2 per year. 4 of them have come in the last two years so they haven't finished their senior campaigns so we will wait on them. But of the remaining 12, 8 took home 3 state medals in their career. Kev James, Sam Webb and Colin abert have a chance to join this pretty exclusive club this year.
However the road for soph medalists has not been easy. Miles, Gil and Steiner are the only ones have improved their finish each year and miles and Gil are the only ones who finished their progression with state titles (although to be fair Conner Quinn got a state title as a junior just not a senior). Abert and James still have a chance to match this achievement this season.
On a positive note let's talk brothers to close things out! The Martin twins are the only pair of brothers were two medals each in the last 8 years. The Dawson twins also got on the medal stand. The izewski bros had medal performances 07-10, the hibbs bros 06-11 and how about the van kootens? If Jeff medals this year they have an 06 and an 14 medalist in the family! A 9 year span. Regardless their 8 year span is quite impressive. Todd gunz has is eyes on making his family the only one with two top 5 finishers in the family in the last decade when dust clears. Same perhaps for Ryan James.
You never know what will happen, states is unpredictable!
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