Dickinson Invite

The indoor track season is typically dominated by the philly area squads with many of the TFCAofGP affiliated schools benefiting from weekly meets and good competition as they chase state standards. The Tri State Coaches association has developed it's own series of meets that seem to be improving D7 performances during the indoor season. They've actually had 3 of the last 5 champs at 3000m and another runner up finish in 2013. 

But the district 3 teams often have to pick their spots. Usually the state college invites including Kevin Dare are the best shots for D3 guys to get on a fast track and chase some standards. There has been plenty of talent in d3 which has led to a series of outdoor state championships, but indoors they are still looking for a man to breakthrough for gold. I'm not sure if they've had a gold medal on the distance side since Craig Miller won the 3k in 2006 (in a meet and state record time of 8:22). Considering that since that title during outdoors they have had champs in the 1600m, 800m and 4x800m multiple times each this seems like an odd trend.

The D3 teams are focused on peaking outdoors, which many would agree is a smart goal. The majority of indoor state champs do not repeat outdoors (one out of three individuals last year) and often times the big names indoors struggle to hold form for the entire year. It's a long stretch to be racing hard and dropping PRs. Even Kyle Francis, the indoor and outdoor 800m state champ looked like he was burnt out early outdoors before turning on the jets at states and making me feel incredibly silly for ever doubting him.

But all the same, indoors is a season where state champions are crowned and considering there are few of those crowned each year (I've seen 65 different individuals share the nearly 100 individual state championships since I started covering this sport in the fall of 2007). The early season meets will go a long way towards determining how these mid state squads will treat this difficult stretch of running and how they will navigate the winter.

At the Dickinson Invite this coming weekend, many D3 teams (as well as some quality teams from around the state) will converge to try and get their first taste of indoor racing. Among the teams on Penntrack's entry list are Camp Hill, Carlisle, Cumberland Valley, Gettysburg, Lower Dauphin and Red Land.

Cumby has probably been the most successful of the D3 indoor squads with scattered medalists over the years. Their XC team was an impressive 7th at states, but their skills on the track are relatively unknown. Some of their top kids chose to extend their season to regionals this year including Wasko, Higgins and Soliman so it's unclear if they will race this weekend on XC fitness, rest up, or try and give it a go after a short training block.

LD had an impressive go this past indoors with Groh and Nissley grabbing many headlines, but Weidner was there too to contribute on the DMR that medaled and to mix it up in the open mile. Weidner was a state medalist in XC and should be a contender in the mile this indoors and out. We will see if he can grab one of the talented sophomores (Cassell and Shea) and bring them along to some fast times and maybe another DMR appearance. (For the record can you find me two better names than Kyler Shea and Colton Cassell? That's the teammate duo I want taking 1-2 at states in two years ....)

Red Land has a pair of state medalists on their roster from cross, but it's unclear if either will be on the track this weekend after running regionals. Same rules apply here as the ones that applied to CV. I'd be quite interested to see Seiger chase a sub 9 3k off XC fitness, but ed had a long year and I wouldn't blame him for resting up and refueling.

Carlisle is a big draw because of the potential for two time state champ Zach Brehm to make an appearance. He chose not to run indoor states last year and didn't pursue footlocker regionals this past year. I'm not expecting him to drop anything crazy at this meet (mostly because it's December and no one will be doing anything too jaw dropping) but how hard he and his teammates go in this meet will show if they are finally considering lacing them up for a run at Hershey.

Dan Filler and Blake Beheny are a couple small school runners we could potentially see involved, both guys are coming off excellent XC campaigns.

Although I haven't made it sound this way, there will be other districts involved this weekend. State College, the defending indoor and outdoor 4x8 state champions, will begin their title defense with a complete new squad after graduating all 4 gold medalists. But this team was deep a year ago and Milligan looks like he may ready to have a breakout season this year if he can continue to improve on the track despite losing 4 excellent training partners.

North Pocono is on the entry list which could mean an appearance from Matt Kravitz. Kravitz qualified for states indoors last year as a sophomore and showed low 4:20s ability in the spring. He dropped a huge time sub 15:40 at the always quick Lehigh course which means his speed is just as sharp as ever. 

There are a variety of other interesting entries including Baldwin, Parkland and Ringgold (who has district 7 stud Noah Smith). 

This meet won't get the big time recognition of the meet at Lehigh (where I will be in attendance), but it has plenty of it's own intriguing sub plots that I look forward to dissecting on my Monday morning train ride.