The 2016 PTFCA Prediction Contest: Etrain vs. Penntrack vs. You

Ladies and gentlmen, it is now official. The long awaited etrain vs. penntrack prediction contest is here. I think it is going to be a ton of fun and I have to give a ton of credit to Mr. Dan Beck for reaching out and offering to participate. He's a great sport and he's made some great predictions.

If you want to take a stab at beating the "experts" (although I doubt either of us would label ourselves as such), you can! It's simple. Just post up your predictions for the 5 distance events (800, Mile, 3k, 4x800 and DMR) here in the comment section, the discussion forum on milesplit or anywhere that I will be able to see it. Then attach some type code name or ID so we will be able to track who you are (for the purposes of properly crediting everyone in the results).

There will be two levels of competition. Dan and I have made predictions through the top 8 (i.e. the medal spots). If you want to enter into a direct match up with the two of us, make sure you write down your top 8 in each of the five events. However, not everyone is a super fan, but everyone should be able to get involved! So you can also enter your top 5 in each of the five events and be scored in the smaller competition.

And even if you don't want to float out a top 5, still feel free to throw up predictions and attach a name. I'll give a shout out in the recap section if one of your bold predictions ends up being correct!

If you're wondering how this is going to be scored, it's like cross country where the lowest score will win. The idea is, closest to being accurate wins with bonuses for picking the state champs correctly. If you pick a state champ correctly, you get a -3 bonus, otherwise you a positive score based on how far away you were from being correct. So for example, say I predict
1. Caleb
2. Alex
3. Paul

And the actual results are:
1. Caleb
2. Paul
5. Alex

Then my score would be -3 + 1 + 3 = 1

It's hopefully a pretty straightforward system and keeps the optimum strategy of "predict what you think will happen" as a logical strategy. Also, so that one bad performance doesn't have any big effects on the predictions, the most points you can score for one person will be 10. So, hypothetically, if Caleb had finished 12th, I only get +10 for him rather than +11.

Sound good? I hope so, because I'm done explaining! Check out a full list of our predictions and previews down below ...

Performance List

Penntrack's Distance Preview

THE MILE
Etrain's Mile Predictions
1. Jaxson Hoey
2. Tucker Desko
3. Josh Hoey
4. Colin Wills
5. Liam Galligan
6. Cooper Leslie
7. Sean Sullivan
8. Jeff Kirshenbaum

Penntrack's Mile Predictions
1. Jaxson Hoey
2. Tucker Desko
3. Liam Galligan
4. Noah Falasco
5. Josh Hoey
6. Colin Wills
7. Jeff Kirshenbaum
8. Connor McMenamin

THE 800m

Etrain's 800m Predictions
1. Matt Wisner
2. Mike Kolor
3. Domenic Peretta
4. Nick Wagner
5. Jaxson Hoey
6. David Fletcher
7. Sean Conway
8. Jack Armand

Penntrack's 800m Predictions
1. Mike Kolor
2. Domenic Peretta
3. Jaxson Hoey
4. Matt Wisner
5. Nick Wagner
6. David Fletcher
7. Isaiah Bailey
8. Brett Wolfinger

THE 3,000m
Etrain's 3,000m Predictions

1. Jake Brophy
2. Dominic Hockenbury
3. Nathan Henderson
4. Nick Wolk
5. Rusty Kujdych
6. Will Loevner
7. Liam Conway
8. Jeff Kirshenbaum

Penntrack's 3,000m Predictions
1. Jake Brophy
2. Nathan Henderson
3. Dominic Hockenbury
4. Nick Wolk
5. Will Loevner
6. Marc Migliozzi
7. Rusty Kujdych
8. Henry Sappey

THE 4X800m
Etrain's 4x800m Predictions
1. State College
2. CB West
3. Abington
4. Germantown Friends
5. CB East
6. O'Hara
7. Bishop Shanahan
8. LaSalle

Penntrack's 4x800m Predictions
1. State College
2. Germantown Friends
3. CB West
4. Bishop Shanahan
5. CB East
6. Abington
7. Cardinal O'Hara
8. Penn Wood

THE DMR
Etrain's DMR Predictions
1. Germantown Friends
2. State College
3. Pennridge
4. CB West
5. Carlisle
6. O'Hara
7. LaSalle
8. Seneca Valley

Penntrack's DMR Predictions
1. Germantown Friends
2. Pennridge
3. CB West
4. State College
5. CB East
6. Carlisle
7. West Chester Henderson
8. LaSalle

PS As a reminder, Etrain will be doing a Q&A podcast tomorrow night (Thursday) from 8-9. So bring your questions, comment on the blog, email or tweet!