Weekly Action

A couple things:
1) I'll try my best not to repeat myself too much as some of the recent action I mentioned or touched on in other posts.
2) I have been doing my best to compile all the fastest times thus far from this indoor season, convert them using the standard PTFCA conversions and then make a ranking sheet for PA distance. This way people can get a better idea for who is in state qualifying position on a week to week basis. I'm planning to post it tomorrow once I have had a chance to update it for this weekend's action. If you see anyone who is missing, please let me know so I can add in the names and make the file as up to date as possible.

Now on to the recapping.

At Chester County, the Coatesville guys put together some nice performances. Tooles won the 800m in 2:04 by a comfortable 2 second margin (he was 1:57ish last year in the open), teammate Josh Okumura was 3rd in the mile in a sub 4:40 time and Blake Ettien was second in the 3k in 9:37, just a few seconds off Jack Carmody's winning effort. It will be interesting to see if Coatesville throws together any relays in the coming weeks and how effective they can be. Tooles against more competition in the 8 would be intriguing as well.

Diestelow continues to run strong this year. He's undefeated this season in the mile (and his 3k at F&M was also a gold medal performance) meaning in the right race he could still get a decent chunk faster. I'd like to see him mix in some other races like the 800m and the 3k a little bit more to keep some variety in the line up, but realistically under the current system, you have to make sure you run as fast as possible in the event you run at states so I understand why they are loading up on the 1609.

The next day at Haverford we saw an explosion of talent in the mile. I already covered the boys from LaSalle in my post from a couple days back (and there will be more to talk about in a couple meets) so I won't touch too much on them here, but they had a great showing with 7 guys at 4:48 or faster including Patrick Grant who ran 4:34 to finish second. The winner of this stacked mile was Brian Arita (4:33.54) which is right around his season best and one of the best early season times in the state. Arita looks like a potential sleeper pick for a medal in the mile thus far (and CRN has had a ton of recent success in this event with Wilson, Zingarini and Campbell) and I'm still very interested to see what he could run in a 3k. At states, however, it will likely be a Mile-DMR double for him to give his relay maximum chance at success.

In other news, the boys from Bensalem also mixed it up nicely in the mile. Their big three of Mays, Shah and Ramirez ran 4:39, 4:40 and 4:42. All of these times are very strong and with another piece they will have a very balanced attack in the 4x8 (they can run a nice DMR, as proven by Lavino, but this program tends to choose the 4x8 by states time). Patrick Dineen for Holy Ghost Prep ran a solid 4:38 as well that should not go overlooked. That's a pair of solid mid distance runs for Dineen after his 800m at TFCAofGP last weekend.

A little down the road, the GFS boys made their first appearance of the indoor season as Grayson Hepp and Nick Dahl ran 2:00.12 and 2:00.14 respectively to dominate the 800m field at Ursinsus. GFS is a DMR school and is usually willing to sacrifice individual events for a shot at a top medal in the DMR. Hepp and Dahl are really strong runners so they may get a shot in the mile similar to Aziz and Wistar from a few years ago, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a loaded, fresh GFS DMR at states. The key will be developing a strong enough middle portion of the relay to justify the move. I'm also looking forward to seeing Dahl and Hepp move up in distance. I think the 800m is probably on the low end of their range and Dahl can likely run a very quick 3k before all is said and done.

At the home of the state championships, we saw a surprising new entry to the State College Invitational: Aaron Gebhart. Gebhart had a pair of dominating wins in one of his first indoor races that I can recall, winning the mile in 4:32.6 and the 3k in 9:05.9. I'm thinking if he takes a fresh shot the 3k (assuming that came second which may not be true) he should be able to get himself into the 12 man state championship field. He's a name that I wasn't counting on being a factor this year, but his appearance adds to an already deep line up of 3k runners expected at states.

Meanwhile, Alex Milligan continues to roll (1:59.3 to win the 800m) and Brian Hackman continues to put up solid marks. Hackman was strong during cross and has now added 4:34ish and 2 flat marks during this track season. Great start to indoors for Hackman. I think Altoona and State College will both be very interesting relay teams this year. State College has the pieces for either a DMR or a 4x8 and both can be legit contenders. Altoona could also be sneaky good at the DMR (or 4x8). I'm curious to see how Sunderland's strong XC season and solid 3k this week translate into the 16/8 for relays. For the record I am big on the State College bandwagon at this point in the year. I think they are going to be strong contenders this indoors. They have shown me some sneaky good depth while also having a quality front runner in Milligan. Plus, they have the experience of watching and training with last year's state champs.

At F&M, JP McCaskey came out the gates very strong. They ran 8:23.15 to win the meet by roughly 20 seconds over Archbishop Carroll. 8:23 may not sound like much (it's not even a SQG) but it's among the leaders in the state for this point in the season, run on a slower track with less competition. Twin Valley ran 8:26 or so at Lehigh with no competition and they are a strong team (10:53 DMR). McCaskey's Nate Henderson, a sophomore medalist in XC, followed up the 4x8 with a 4:41.55 mile and a 9:43 3k. Not a bad triple for a sophomore in his first race back (assuming he was on the 4x8). Teammate Duncan Hopkins was second in the 3k with a time of 9:21.

Kyle Shinn from Wyomissing continues a strong indoor season, following up an early season 3k win with an impressive 4:36.95 mile to win by roughly 5 seconds. Keep an eye on Shinn if he makes a move to a faster track with faster competition. He's off to a very nice start to this season. Matt Bouldin (Archbishop Carroll) ran a dominating 2:03.65 800m and Nate Becker (Ephrata) won the 3k in 9:18. Both times are solid for this point in the season and put these runners into the state qualifying mix as of now.

On the West Coast, we saw our first pieces of action at Youngstown. I'm assuming this track was a flat track, so let me know if it was not. An impressive early season win for Ringgold in the 4x800m with an 8:35 run to beat Hempfield Area and Penn Hills. Ringgold's Noah Smith likely played a key role in the victory and competed in both the 1600m (4:46) and 3200m (10:24). That's a killer triple to have on the agenda for the first meet back. Jeff Van Kooten was the top PA runner in the 32 (10:09) and Eric Kennedy was tops in the 16 (4:41). The big story of the day was Andrew Koryak of Vincentian Academy who dropped an impressive 1:58.64 to take the victory in the 800m. Koryak was a strong AA 800m runner a year ago and gets off to an excellent start for this indoor season. I'm not completely convinced that Ritz or Lewis will run the 800m at states (and I'd be stunned if Ritz runs it fresh) which means the 800m is fairly wide open for the top few spots. That makes Koryak a compelling watch looking ahead.

At the Lebanon Valley Invite (results link if you haven't seen them: http://www.godutchmen.com/documents/2015/1/10//2015hsfinal.pdf?id=1013), a variety of District 3 teams came to the track to race. Nick Mahon of Wilson got another impressive 800m win, running 2:06.71. Mahon won an early 800m at Kutztown in around 2:04. A District 3 XC runner up Cooper Leslie from Camp Hill won the mile in 4:44 over Hempfield's Coby Mattes (4:47). Lower Dauphin's Sean Weidner ran 9:26 to win the 3k over a strong field that included Gabe Lamm (9:30), Coby Mattes (9:33), Nick Norton (9:34), Aiden Demko (9:40), and Zach Seiger (9:40). The time isn't jaw dropping for Weidner, but it's an impressive group of names that he was able to beat out and that should give him confidence going forward.

I'll be back to recap the last few meets of the weekend tonight/tomorrow! Don't want to tire you out with an absurdly long post.