State Recap: 800m

Last year's class of 800m runners was praised as the greatest of all time. Francis, Wiseman and Logue were destructive last year both indoors and out, producing the two fastest state meets for 800m in history.

Well that run lasted about a year.

If Lewis had found .03 seconds, he would have grabbed the second straight state record of the day for the distance fellows. Lewis had to settle for #2 all time and somewhere around #6 all time in US high school history (don't quote me on that). Lewis made the jump to 800m after a disappointing 400m at MoCs and his decision paid off fantastically. Lewis, running 1:50.57 indoors to go with his 1:50.01 last outdoors, sets himself for his own state record pursuit this spring. He cements his own meet of champs spot at 800m this June at Henderson and rumors are he will consider a record attempt there. It would be almost exactly 5 years after Mallon first "tied" the record in 2010 at the same track.

How about Elias Graca? 1:50.8 gets you 2nd? Now that's a crazy race. Graca is now #3 in indoor state history (and possibly in the top 10 in history nationally) but had to settle for silver. This is Graca's first loss of the season in races where he correctly counted his laps and sets him up beautifully for his own record attempts outdoors. Graca could become the third Fox Chapel state champ in 3 years if he wins the outdoor 800m title. Unlike Lewis, this is a lifetime best for Graca indoors or out and beats his prior best by almost 2.5 seconds. 

It's hard to say who I was most impressed by in this race. Quite frankly, Sam Ritz stunned me almost as much as seeing 1:50 on the scoreboard twice. Ritz had run 4:09 already when he doubled back on phenomenal fashion to run 1:51.79 for 3rd in the 8. I didn't think he would have anywhere near the gas in the tank to hang in this event, but he killed it. It makes Ritz's double arguably as impressive as Endress's legendary double gold in 2011 and makes you wonder what he could have done on fresh legs against this group. 

Honestly, this race was just filthy fast and top to bottom was way quicker than I would have ever predicted. Sauer grabbed fourth in 1:52.99, adding yet another mark to the exploding sub 1:53 indoors club. Sauer's time is a lifetime open best. Matt Wisner ran huge outside of the fast section to run 1:54.5, a blazing fast time and huge PR. Khai Samuels dropped to 1:54.99 and Eddinger to 1:55.00. Add in Brook Wilson's massive PR to get to 1:55.15 and it was one heck of a day! The level of PRs was absurd.

Obviously it's hard to see Wisner run this kind of mark and not think, Carlisle 4x8? I'm not sure what other pieces they have in play, but they are defending d3 champs if memory serves and were top 10 in the state in 2013. I'd love to see a DMR thrown together for Penn, but that's probably a little unrealistic in such a short time period. But for now, let's enjoy a killer indoor campaign for Wisner. If I'm not mistaken, he won every indoor race he entered this year (including his state heat) which is something that few others can boast (probably only McGoey?).

With Samuels' 1:54.99, he becomes one of the fastest D11 runners of all time and puts himself in an elite class after his best race since December. Only thing I question is that DNF in the mile. As I've speculated/reported, his best event was the 8 this year and I felt he should have just went in this race fresh to begin with (which is what looks like happened).

Normally I wouldn't care if a guy works around the rules of a no scratch meet to pseudo scratch, but considering there were only 20 spots available for the mile this year and it wasn't just a "if you hit the time you are in" type of situation, if there was some deception here I'd be upset (especially if I was kid #21 and didn't get in to states as a result). I'm not trying to accuse or anything here and I didn't see the mile or the DNF, nor do I know the whole story here, but I'm just thinking for future kids, this could/should be a rule/practice that is reviewed.

Ultimately, the indoor events have gotten phenomenally faster in the last half decade or so. It's absurd how fast people are running in March now. Remember up until 2009, the long standing state record was low 1:52s by Paul Vandegrift. Since then, we have had Mallon, Endress, Willig (twice I believe), Francis, Wiseman, Logue, Lewis, Graca and Ritz break the record. 

For comparison's sake, in the past 10+ years we've had just 1.35 record breaking performances in the 800m for Vandegrift's outdoor record (why 1.35? Well Grift's 1:48.8 was a hand time record so it's usually customary to add .2-.24 seconds to that time to convert it to FAT. Magaha ran 1:48.82 and Mallon ran 1:49.01. Although both marks could be considered faster than Grift, technically speaking I'm not giving either 100% record breaking status.)

I'd be surprised to see Lewis completely pass on Indoor Nats this year, but I'm hoping that Cheltenham goes after the national record in the sprint med. They have an excellent shot considering the bomb Lewis just dropped at PSU and their 1:28/3:20 relay combination.