State Recap: 3000m

With names like James, Brophy and Webb out of the line-up for the 3,000m, the door was open for some of the lesser known strength runners to seize a state title. But despite the surprising look of the field, the result fit neatly into state history. 2010 was the last time that North Allegheny won a state title in Cross Country and the following winter, their #1 runner Ryan Gil followed up with a gold medal in the 3000m. Similarly, Matt McGoey of North Allegheny came out ready to repeat history after NA’s 2014 XC State Championship and he did just that, capturing the gold in 8:35.

The win is the first individual gold for McGoey, who has been relatively buried in the field the past two track state championships despite running excellent marks around 8:45 and 9:12. After a career best 4th place finish during cross country and an undefeated run in the 3k this season, he was able to take down gold once again. This marks the 4th time a WPIAL runner has won the 3k since 2010 and the 5th time in the past 6 years a man from the West has finished in the top two.

Behind McGoey was a tough run by Dominic Hockenbury of Lake Lehman. The AA state champion in cross country was hoping for his 3rd straight gold medal at states, but couldn’t quite hang with McGoey’s closing speed. This is still a huge step forward for Hockenbury, who’s 3k converts to a career best 9:14 for 3200m and sets him up well to defend his state title outdoors. He is still only a Junior as well. I’d be interested to see both Hockenbury and McGoey chase some fast times in the mile this spring to complement their excellent strength. I feel both would benefit and also believe both could cut a substantial amount of time from their PRs.

In 3rd place was Hatboro Horsham’s Casey Comber, who finished in a PR of 8:37 (equivalent to about 9:15 for 3200m). Comber apparently was closing hard towards the end of the race, but ran out of real estate. It’s already been a huge senior year for Comber who clocked a series of big indoor PRs this year. Next was Aaron Gebhart of New Oxford, coming through impressively for 4th. Jack Tidball continued to impress, dropping time and getting to 5th overall. This was a big showing for Tidball who proved his 8:52 was no fluke going into the outdoor season.

Hunter Wharrey, Paul Power and Todd Gunzenhauser rounded out the medals with Will Loevner finishing 9th. As mentioned, I was worried about the build-up of all the 3ks those western runners ran this past indoors, but it appeared they were barely phased as all three broke 8:50. Power dropped his PR as well, retooling to peak well for states after a disappointing race at the Carnival. Loevner moves to AA for outdoors, defending a top 3 finish from a year ago. He’s in excellent shape and appears like the primary contender to challenge Hockenbury (unless Griffin Molino comes rolling back around soon). Wharrey has an excellent training partner in McGoey and Todd Gunz has the experience and guidance of the 2010 3k state champ under his roof (brother Rad Gunzenhauser).

Outdoors is setting up to be mammoth as many of the big names who scratched on the 3k for relays/miles are likely going to change their focus when the weather gets warmer this spring. It’s already been outlined in some comments by the readers (excellent work readers), so check out the comments section for the mile. But here’s my two cents on it.

We already return a slew of sub 9:20 guys from last spring: James, Jaxson Hoey (completely forgot about him in all the craziness), Webb, Ritz, Dahl, McGoey, Hockenbury, Comber, Gebhart, Marston, Brehm, and Molino. This group doesn’t include Brophy (state champ in XC), Abert (sub 15 at Lehigh and low 9:20s last year) or Billy McDevitt (emerging stud, 4th in the mile at indoor states). Keep in mind the sub 15 at Lehigh group has the following PRs: 9:07, 9:02, 8:57 and 8:48. The AAA state champs in XC do pretty darn well for themselves historically over 2 miles as you might have guessed.

Plus, inevitably, someone will emerge to join the group. Loevner, Tidball, Wharrey, Power and Gunzenhauser all took great strides this indoor season. Sebastian Curtin (sub 16 at Hershey), Will Kachman and Domenic Perretta are names to remember this coming outdoors for AA.

The 3k sounds like it was an awesome race and, although it may not have had the flashy individual marks the other distance events did, it produced some compelling drama and certainly got the fans anxious for the next battle this outdoors.