New Balance? I Stand Fine As Is

The New Balance Games this week at the Armory provide one more opportunity for PA's finest to qualify for the fabled Millrose Games on Valentine's Day. PA's Sam Ritz is already slotted for attendance thanks to his win at the appropriately named Millrose Trials a week ago and now we will wait to see if we will have a second representative (I believe PA has not had two reps since 2010 when Mallon and Kehl punched tickets).

PA's best hope for the golden ticket appears to be Kevin James of Cardinal O'Hara. In his brief time back on the track, James has anchored a victorious DMR in around 4:17 and dominated a 3k, winning in 8:40. Both times came in flats on a flat track. Now James moves to a faster track with close to the best competition you can receive in the hopes of taking a solid chunk out of that early season split. 

He will need it. That 4:17 was a split and only a 1600m (the equivalent of roughly 4:19 for the full mile). In the recent qualifying races it took roughly 4:10 or a 1:57 close to take the gold. I haven't dived into the math yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if 4:15ish was the last time to crack the qualifying standards. 

But James has been on a role this season, hungry from yet another close call with Gold and rolling off arguably two of the most impressive non-Sam Ritz performances of the year. He ran about 4:12 and 9:03 last spring while also showcasing speed in the 1:55 range. 

The last time James stepped on the Armory's track, he and his O'Hara teams won the National Championship and came within a fraction of the best indoor DMR EVER. I'd imagine that takes some pressure off.

James won't be the only one in the Mile repping the PA Don't Play slogan. A couple D11 rivals Khai Samuels from Pleasant Valley and Ryan Paradise from Emmaus are slotted to be in what looks to be the slower of two sections, but both are hoping to put their names on the map as many fans probably haven't heard much about them.

Paradise, a Junior this year, played soccer in the fall after a terrific sophomore track season. At the District 11 Championships, he started the day anchoring his Emmaus squad to near upset of Whitehall, running 8:01.22 for second and a spot at states. But Paradise wasn't done just yet. He battled for an individual spot on the starting line at states, but lost to another soph (Joe Espinal) running 4:24.96 to 4:24.91 and missed out. But Paradise wasn't done just yet. He rallied for a third race of the meet, running 1:59.03 for 3rd in the 800m, again just one spot away from an individual state qualifying mark.

The man who won that 800m race was Khai Samuels of Pleasant Valley who ran 1:57.76 that day for the gold. Samuels is essentially already back at that mark, running 1:57 this past December in a battle with Pennsbury's Alek Sauer. That race marked Samuels' arrival among the state's best (he too smashed the old meet record of 1:58.20), but now he tries his hand up in distance at the mile. We will see just how close to the top end of his range this is, but Samuels is likely confident after a strong fall and early winter and he is happy to have teammate Seth Slavin to help him up his endurance.

Speaking of Seth, Pleasant Valley is sending Slavin along with Samuels to the Armory this weekend. Slavin and Samuels will likely run the end legs of Pleasant Valley's DMR. PV will be chasing a 10:50 type mark that has become the new projected state standard seemingly over night. And that mark is within reach.

Pleasant Valley is a certified sleeper. After their run at Lehigh early in December it was clear they were a D11 team to watch. Now, thanks to Samuels emergence, Slavin's 9:46 2 mile (converts to 9:02 for 3k) and Aliem Hoousenclove (51.64 400m, top 10 in the state) this team is a state team to watch. It will be interesting to see how they choose to build their order. Slavin seems to have the best strength while Samuels has the perfect combination of speed and endurance to hit the 1200m well, however Pleasant Valley opted for Slavin at the 12 the last time out and he may be more comfortable in that role. 

(Small side note, Slavin's 9:46 converts to 9:02 and change on milesplit, but the PTFCA converts it to 9:08! That's 6 very significant seconds. The PTFCA uses a flat rate of 35 seconds 3200m to 3k, but 35 seconds for 200m is 4:40/9:20 pace, i.e. 8:45 for 3k. So unless you are Nick Dahl or Kev James you aren't getting full value with that conversion. Plus that assumes that you would just keep running the same pace for the extra 200m, which is wrong, so really the 35 second conversion doesn't make sense until you are around 8:40-8:41. So PTFCA stop screwing over distance runners! Now back to the preview)

Also on the entry list for the DMR are Penncrest, St. Joe's Prep and Radnor. Penncrest is a fantastic 4x8 team (PA #2 from an earlier Armory meet) and one of the early contenders for state gold in that event. To me, they are perfectly built for the 4x8, so I'm very interested to see how they handle the DM. Their logical mile legs have graduated (the Kazanjian bros) and this race will provide an excellent opportunity for the 800m men to stretch their range. I think this an exciting opportunity and a nice variation and worthwhile experiment. At the very least, it keeps things interesting in practice. Best case, this is 2008 Penncrest 2.0 (2nd place at indoor states).

Radnor was a DMR medaling squad in 2014 and with Holm and Kelly back, they have the pieces to put together another sub 11. They recently ran what was likely a tune up for this meet at one of the TFCAofGP meets, running a fast DM. The DMR is ultra competitive this year, so teams will need all the chances they can to run fast. Radnor sees this as a chance to get their name back in the conversation for state elite.

Lastly is St Joe's Prep. This is one of my favorite squads to watch so far in 2015. Daly was my upset special in the mile at Burdette and nearly came through for me, finishing 2nd. Isaiah Fisher is a quality 800m runner who also has the strength to run close to 16 flat in the 5k. Those are two dangerous end legs. Prep was a good 4x8 last year (7:53ish at states) and I think they are built very nicely for a DMR push. This team seems to prefer the DMR based on past state results, but hasn't been fast enough to qualify in recent years. I think that will change this week. I'm projecting a big day for Prep.

Good luck to all teams. Represent us well PA.

PS I finally found those PCL results. I'll update my file accordingly for next week so the state qualifying standards are up to date.