TFCAofGP #3

By Jarrett Felix

It's a tough time of year to run fast. You are off from school, enjoying the holidays, eating junk, staying up late. I know I always struggled at meets this time of year, trying to break out of a funk and all my lifestyle inconsistencies. Despite the distractions, lots of runners still rose to the occasion at the third installment of the TFCAofGP meets at Lehigh.

In Division One, Neshaminy's Sean Conway blasted a very quick 1:58.16 to win the 800m by nearly 5 seconds over Connor McMenamin of Souderton. That's a huge run for Conway who, personally, I always thought of him as more of a 400m specialist. I'm interested to see if he continues to test himself at this distance or moves back up to 4 (where the individual race seems fairly open). Keep in mind this 800m victory was even a larger margin than Desko at the Armory, on a flat track without spikes, so you could make a case that Conway belongs in the poll up now on the blog.

Ndiaga Seck of Penn Wood finished behind McMenamin by half a second (2:02.98-2:03.41). Jeff Espinal added another 800m is successive meets, clocking 2:04 after his 2:01 at the Armory. Rounding things out in 5th was Abington's Harpeet Singh who is ran 2:05.07 on this flat track just a few days after running for the Abington B squad at the Armory. It speaks to the depth of this Abington team that maybe their 5th best 800m runner can still grab medals on the big stage.

I also liked the run out of Christian Craig of William Tennent who ran 2:06.53. I feel like WT is gathering some pieces with him and Kraus that could help them surprise a few people with a strong late season relay.

In the mile, Tucker Desko continues to roll with a very quick 4:27.35, putting him in the conversation with state leaders like Hall, DiCintio and Wills despite the fact that he had a solid 4 second margin of victory over second place (Rusty Kujdych added a 4:31). Desko has now run 1:56 and 4:27 in the span of a couple days to end December/start January which is pretty good. Especially considering Pennridge has rarely, if ever, mistimed their peak for the big meets. 

Matt Kraus of Tennent was 3rd in 4:41 and frosh David Endres of CB East was 4th with a very strong freshman time of 4:48.

Frank Livolsi of LaSalle grabbed victory in the 3k, running 9:24 to defeat Tennent soph Sean Rahill. I'm thinking we are going to start to see more and more of LaSalle's excellent XC squad surfacing in the individual events on the track in the coming weeks and I'm excited. They have a tremendous amount of depth in the locker room that should translate to some big marks at these meets.

In the 4x8, Upper Dublin took the victory of Pennridge 8:30 to 8:31, as Pennridge likely ran without both of their top early season 800m guys in Desko and Espinal. Pennridge also won the 4x2 and were second in the 4x4.

In the DMR, the Abington Ghosts kept galloping. They have been on fire thus far and their first race of 2016 looked a lot like their last of 2015. Abington added to their PA #1 4x8 with a PA #1 DM of 10:47.09 defeating a very strong effort from CR South who impressed in second with a 10:54. CB South was also under 11:10, running 11:06 for 3rd. Abington has had (to me) surprisingly levels of success in the DMR the past two seasons despite the fact that many of their best 800m guys are also 400m guys, meaning they would really be stretching themselves at 1200m. Jake Good, however, has proven he is a more than capable miler and can hold his own even on XC courses (he won his home invite over some top names like Abrahams and Ilgenfritz). While I think this squad would be fun to see line up for some DMRs, much like Pennsbury and Bensalem before them, I don't think we will see it any sort of state/national meet.

The Division II action had its fair share of fun as well. Brett Zatlin took the W in the 800m with his brother in the crowd, running 2:05 to beat out Patrick Donahue of HGPrep who ran 2:06. That's a nice run for the soph to pair with a solid miler earlier in the year. 

In the mile, Joseph Cardie of Springfield DELCO came up with a huge breakthrough, running a quick 4:38 for the victory. I didn't know anything about Cardie, but that's a quick time, especially in a winning effort, which makes the 1-2 punch for Springfield DELCO very fast in a potential DMR attempt. The other piece of that 1-2 punch, Liam Galligan, rolled to a huge 8:56.14 W in the 3k, unleashing a big kick to bust loose of the field over the second mile and, apparently, close near 30 seconds flat. This is the fastest 3k we have seen this year (although Kirshenbaum and arguably Slavin have clocked quick 2 mile equivalents) and it comes in a race where Galligan ended up winning by 25 seconds over second place (Strath Haven's Ian Reid who clocked a solid 9:21).

Lower Merion had some nice individual success taking 3rd in the 800m (Will Rieke) and 2nd in the Mile (Theodore Neckowicz). Neckowicz dropped a very nice 4:40 for 2nd in the mile and, considering they have D'Aquila on the squad as well, you have to like the potential on this LM squad for sleeper status in a relay. D'Aquila and Neckowicz are both juniors, as are Galligan and Cardie.

Wissahickon took the W in the 4x8 with an 8:36, meaning both relay titles went to squads within about 5 minutes of one another (ironically I checked the status of both tracks yesterday to see if they were unlocked and neither was). O'Hara took gold in the DMR with an 11:33 to beat the Haverford School for second. No idea if James and/or Morro are back in the line up for OH, but if not this is a nice display of depth. I think the defending state champions won't go quietly in the DM this year.