Weekend Recap Part I: Yeah, It's One Of Those Weeks

Shout out to Caleb Gatchell. He knows why. How about that for an intro.

To the results!

Pan Ram Invitational

With Noah out of the lineup, we are going to have to start to take a serious look at Carlisle’s super soph Sam Affolder as the name to watch this outdoor season. He and Josh Hoey, who dueled to two of the fastest indoor miles in state history are both off to terrific starts this year. And, while Hoey ran some blazing fast marks down south, Sam didn’t do so bad himself up here in the northeast. He ran 4:16 and 1:56.26 to win both of his races. The 1600 was a runaway gold, a nearly 12 second victory over a very strong runner in Jared Giannascoli of Lower Dauphin (XC state medalist with a ton of upset as a sleeper pick this outdoor season). Then he edged out a close battle with Austin Padmore in the 800.

By the way, Padmore is having an awesome season as well for a Milton Hershey middle distance squad that is excelling. Austin has already broken 50 in the open quarter and now adds a 1:56.48 to his 2017 portfolio. Milton Hershey also won the 4x8 and the 4x4.

Some other key marks came in from Alex Tomasko and Kyler Shea in the 3200. Tomasko, who was a 1600 state qualifier type, is coming off a phenomenal XC season where he lived comfortably under 16 minutes. He has now dropped a couple big 3200 wins to start the year. Excited to see him back in what may be his best event, the 1600. Or at least see him going head to head with teammate Morgan Cupp, a top finisher from XC states this year. Shea had an excellent state run in the 3200 last outdoors in oppressive conditions and, having broken 15:40 during XC, is clearly ready to compete for his first state medal outdoors.

Nice 1600 performance turned in by AA’s Morgan Morrison. Morrison, who was the top D3 runner at A XC States, ran 4:29.54 to finish 4^th in the 4 lapper. He’s an early contender in that event that seems much more wide open with Domenic Perretta moving onto PSU (although Forsythe has looked excellent to date).

Hempfield

The boys from Ephrata had a really strong showing out at Hempfield. They won the 4x800 meters with a time of 8:20.34, defeating Hempfield and Hershey among others. It was a balanced squad as well based on the posted splits. I liked what this team did during indoor track, led by state medalist Zach Lefever (more of a long distance guy), but developing some middle distance talent as well that you probably haven’t heard of before. Tyler Shue and Alex Morales combined for a 1-3 finish in the 800 running 2:01 and 2:02.01 respectively. Shue edged out Cedar Crest’s Jesse Cruise (1:55-4:17 bests) who was doubling off a silver in the 16, while Morales defeated Hershey’s Andrew Sullivan.

I’m really excited to watch the D3 4x800. I’d imagine Carlisle will give it a big effort and hopefully that pulls these other programs to fast time. CV is always dangerous, Ephrata has been developing, Milton Hershey is excellent and maybe Mechanicsburg, Lower Dauphin or others that aren’t coming to mind at this moment will be contenders.

Perhaps the most impressive performance of the day (on the distance side I should clarify, Laird ran 10.51) belonged to Nate Henderson who won the 1600 with a time of 4:17.83. Henderson left the meet with a double digit victory and a very evenly run race based on the splits. Henderson is still in search of his first outdoor state medal, having finished 9^th each of the past two seasons in the 3200. With Affolder out, Henderson is definitely the favorite for that state title in the 3200. In fact, if Noah hadn’t come along this XC season, Henderson would be shooting for the very rare triple crown of XC, indoor 3k and outdoor 3200 (which hasn’t happened since 2006-2007).

The sleeper here is Doug Kramer of Penn Manor. Kramer, a strong XC runner historically, won the slow heat of the 1600 in 4:34, good enough for 5^th overall. Kramer actually had the second fastest 1200 split out of anyone and with a little extra company for that finishing kick might have been able to dip under 4:30. He has teammate Malachi Lyon (4^th in 4:31.1) to help him try and reach those new personal bests.

TSTCA Outdoor Championships

Butler’s Noah Beveridge dropped a new 1600 picture in a big win against South Fayette’s indoor state medalist Sam Snodgrass 4:22-4:28. It’s not clear to me if Snodgrass was doubling off the 4x8 (which SF won in 8:24), but regardless it’s a big win for Beveridge who appears to be trending back toward the form he showcased in the stretch run of cross country. Beveridge was joined in the top 4 by teammate Brett Brady who ran 4:32.

Don’t sleep on Winchester Thurston’s Gordon Pollock. Pollock was “buried” on the depth chart the past couple years behind guys like Delany, Loevner, Littman, Forsythe and Hay, but Pollock has consistently been improving since his freshman season. Now the junior dropped a 4:32 1600, running sub 9 seconds faster than his seed time. Pollock also ran 2:04 in the 800 for 5^th.

In one of the most impressive results of the meet, Mount Lebanon’s Nate Everhardt pulled out an impressive 1:59.30 to defeat a solid field with Isaiah Bailey of Penn Hills in 2^nd, Elias Zajicek of Chartiers Valley and Silas Mays of South Fayette. The other big win came from Casey Conboy of Baldwin who dropped a 9:41 for the 3200 to pick up the victory over Shaun Hay and Czar Tarr. Conboy, who should have 3200 title hopes this season, gets a real notable win in his best distance. Looking forward to seeing him hopefully face Skolnekovich at some point.

Viking Invitational

A week ago, Hudson Delisle was the talk of the recap. He continues to run great times at over distance, running 4:26, but he had to settle for the silver this week as Owen Ritz of GA took the victory in 4:25. Ritz ran a huge 4:21 last year at the Abington Invitational to break out onto the scene, but, as a non PIAA performer, he won’t always grab the headlines during the spring season. Don’t sleep on him as a contender for a big time as the weather continues to warm up.

Delisle wasn’t the only junior who grabbed headlines at indoor states. The other huge story was Liam Conway of Owen J Roberts. The junior came off a late season injury in the fall to storm to a pair of state medals. Now, taking things up a notch, he jumped to the 3200 and won an excellent battle with Spring Ford’s Jake McKenna 9:37-9:40. Austin Maxwell of Kennett was also under 10 minutes at 9:55.

Conway picking up the victory obviously grabs the headline, but the time from fellow junior McKenna definitely got my attention. McKenna was sneaky good at the longer stuff at the end of last season (as just a soph) and is a big talent who has been slowly compiling experience over the past 12 months. Keep an eye on him as a potential breakout performer before everything is said and done. Remember, last year a slew of new, relatively unknown distance runner types came flying in to steal most of the state qualifying 3200 spots in some really fast times. Maybe that happens again this year with McKenna among the scrum?

Bensalem Invitational

This one was a fun one. In a huge 3200 match up, juniors Ryan Campbell and Rusty Kujdych faced off in their signature event. Kujdych, the indoor 3k runner-up and district one XC champ, ran 9:32 but Campbell got the better of him with a 9:30. This result comes shortly after Campbell dropped a massive sub 15:20 5,000 at his home invite. Now Kujdych also won the 1600 and I can’t tell you which event came first, but regardless I think this says more about Ryan than Rusty. We know Rusty is a beast who is a legit title threat, but Ryan Campbell is making a case that he is too. That sort of reminds me of Ross Wilson’s big junior year rise that ended in a runner-up finish at outdoor states behind Ethan Martin.

As mentioned, Kujdych won the 1600 with a time of 4:27. He pulled away by 10+ seconds over two excellent Pennsbury runners in Jed Scratchard and Eric Kersten. Both of those guys hit the SQG indoors for the mile and have incredibly 800 chops. Speaking of Pennsbury, Aidan Sauer pulled out a huge win in the open 800 with a time of 1:58.96. Aidan, likely the younger brother of 2015 800 state-runner up Alek, stunned me with this victory, outlasting a pair of studs in Bryan Keller (1:59.02) and Evan Kutney (2:00.14). Sauer wasn’t grabbing headlines indoors as Scratchard and Kersten were the big names, but much like CB West’s Brian Baker, he is coming out the gates blazing this spring. I really like Pennsbury’s 4x8 chops. Interested to see how they handle Penn Relays.

Worth noting, Sam Early of CR North finished 4^th overall in 2 flat. This came shortly after Early pulled out an impressive Kiwanis 3k victory. Kid’s got range.

More tomorrow ...