Instant Reactions: Carlisle Invite

Instant reactions:

Wow! York Suburban! That is a huge statement. Sean and I discussed them on the pod but neither of us thought they had the depth to mix it up with the packs that we thought we might see from DTWest, LaSalle, etc. Wilt and Mears had strong races out front taking 20th and 22nd (they were the #12 and 14 PA finishers). They were also the top AA finishers (in this race) edging Tidball (24th/15th). But he thing that obviously stunned me was the depth. They put 5 guys under 17 and were the top PA team and second overall. That's the thing, they had two front runners but also a killer pack.

They are the heavy favorites now for the team title and we have to consider them a top 10 team right about now.

But of course, we won't see them match up against the best teams in the state because there is no meet of champs. Sick of me bringing this up yet? Yeah I'm sick of having to talk about it!

In other news, this race was really close. Fun fact, three teams tied with exactly 241 points (14 behind York Sub's 227). PA won both tie breakers over University High with DTW taking 3rd and Henderson 4th. Think these teams have a nice rivalry going? Hmm yeah I think so.

I saw a fantastic quote on PA don't play that I'm going to steal here. "The demise of Henderson has been greatly exaggerated".

Sappey had a huge day for DT West running a mammoth 15:56 (just three seconds behind Hoey) and finishing 4th out of all PA boys, 7th overall. But the pack behind him couldn't quite pull through, nobody else was in the top 30 PA boys. Meanwhile Henderson rode big races by Barchet and Swart (23rd and 25th out of PA guys). Pair those guys with Knapp, known for doing his best racing in November (and late November really) and the quickly developing freshman Smucker (16:47 today) and this top 4 looks good. They have to sure up the 5 (I see potential there somebody like McSwain perhaps). But I think DTWest is better than what we saw today. Not that top AAA PA team isn't good ... Cuz that's a statement in it's own right.

Didn't I mention how crazy close this meet was? LaSalle scored 245, 4 points back from these two squads. Red Land scored 252. Then parkland 285, JP McCaskey 290, CV 293, Carlisle 314, SC 316. Madness.

LaSalle comes through with a 17 second spread. But their top guy (Goebel takes the honors this week, it's a new guy every race for this pack) was 26th out of PA boys. That means Henderson had 3 in before their 1. But they still were just 5 points away from being the top PA AAA team. And again they only had 6 guys finish! Second straight invite with only 6 guys finishing for a team tht has crazy depth through like 15 guys? That's something I'm keeping an eye on.

My overall gut reaction: Goodness this is a classic 2008-2009 LaSalle squad. They are crazy similar. This team will peak at Hershey without a doubt but they, unlike most of the other top teams, will relay on their #1, not their #5, to get on the medal stand.

Red Land looked quite strong behind Seiger putting his big boy pants on (15:40 for 3rd overall and 2nd PA). Red Land has looked somewhat average in dual meets this year if I'm being honest so I started to doubt them. I probably should have remembered one key fact: who cares about dual meets? Districts and states aren't dual meets, they are invitationals. And Wilkinson and Mills did a great job behind Seiger again having a quality dual meet. Wilkinson was 13th out of pa boys. That's sweet. Their 1:53 second spread (partially influenced by Seiger's huge day) is going to have to shrink going forward for them to reach their full potential, but this team is no joke.

Parkland handled Freedom 285 to 406, despite Quigley running a sweet 16:07 for 10th PA finisher. Parkland has a really nice top 3 with Geiger (one of my early season boys) Newman and Kyvelos. But Fredom will improve. They didn't show Ben Zeigler in the results (top 50 at states last year) and only had 6 finishers. That's a 75ish point spread at least in my eyes.

McCaskey? Big day. Huge day. Sophomore Nathan Henderson was the 7th PA finisher and 11th overall today. Keep in mind that's one slot ahead of Aaron Genhardt and one spot behind Jeff VanKooten. Wow. Plus they had Hopkins and Guiterrez in the top 32 PA finishers. They had a 4th under to boot but an 18:09 5th held them back from Red Land. But I love what McCaskey showed. I picked the wrong name for a sleeper from this team. I should have picked their whole squad.

I don't want to give too much away because I have a post planned for this later this week but here is something to consider.

Only 4 teams from District 3 make states. You have Carlisle, CV, Red Land, Twin Valley, Lower Dauphin, JP McCaskey and Hempfield (434 points without the guy I think is their #1). Your guess is as good as mine.

State College had another great day. They beat Altoona (missing Stroh who is injured and MIA for who knows how long). And this team ran pre states and a dual meet with Carlisle in the last 7 days. Makes their performance even better. Nice work from their top 3.

Individually it was nice to have Sean on the pod. Dominating win from Brehm and a course record. Brian Delaney jumps into the Challenge race and breaks 16. In the champions race Bryce Descavish gets 4th in 16:33 behind Dan Green's sub 16 win.

I'm very curious what we would have seen from Green if he was in the challenge race. Look Shinn is a great runner and he had a real nice 16:11 for 2nd to Green. But Green's 15:55 was 16 seconds better and his time would have been 7th in the challenge race. It's a dangerous game to compare too much across races, but Green might have been the #3 Pa guy today, ahead of Hoey (15:53 for 6th overall) if he was in the challenge.

As for Hoey, he was running by himself without his team this weekend and I imagine he just got out a little too fast (as Sean warned us could happen) and Brehm took over. For the record this was a fantastic race for Brehm. Is he back in the state tile talks now? He probably should be right?

Somewhere Colin Abert is smiling. "Always picking someone else to beat me etrain? Well I'll just do what I always do and deliver at states and be tops in my class." It's really not fair to honest Abert. He will probably throw down at Paul Short to show everyone what's up.

Nice race from Ryan Rasatter to get 3rd in the champs race in 16:26. Big day for Faust (9th PA in 16:07), Andrew Koryak (20th PA in challenge, Top A runner), and Morgan Cupp (runs 16:38 as a frosh). Also props to Manheim Central for winning the champions race. AA District 3 repping this weekend.

That's my quick hits on Carlisle. What are you guys thinking after the dust has settled?