Quick Weekend #2 Preview

Welcome back ladies and gents! While I start to finish up and get ready to post the team rankings by district, I thought I'd lay out some of the upcoming meets this weekend and see if we can get some discussion/predictions going. Best of luck to all the competitors!

Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational-
No full team list out from what I can find, but this Friday invitational is always competitive. University High (WV) was already in PA for Marty Uher, what damage can they do this time around? Will the State College boys be able to defend their turf per usual?

Red, White & Blue Classic-
Known as one of the premier early season Pittsburgh meets, who will assert themselves out west? With teams like Greensburg Salem, Mount Lebanon, Seneca Valley, and perhaps most exciting, North Allegheny, we should get a great idea of how the D7 AAA picture will shape up. Will the experienced dominance of SV come out on top with Owori and Ketler? Or will McGoey and new transfer Zach Kinne show that they truly could go 1-2 at the state championship this year? And as always, in this 50 or so teams, there is always one sleeper. What non-traditional school steps up and hangs with the big dogs this weekend? Individually, it doesn't look much different. Look for Kinne and McGoey to up against Owori and Ketler, while Lebo's Anderson looks to make a statement after his season opener victory.

1-Seneca Valley
2-North Allegheny
3-Mount Lebo

1-Kinne
2-Ketler
3-McGoey
4-Owori
5-Anderson

Keep an eye on Christian Fitch.

Lackawanna County Commissioners Invitational-
Couple openers to watch here. After a solid opener from Montrose last week, Holy Cross will make their debut, and better help shape the picture for how A is going to look in District 2. Watch out for Scranton as well after a decent opener at Cliff Robbins as well. Look for Phoenixville Area to be somewhere around the top as well. They're somewhat deep and have a solid runner out front in Puleo. They could sneak up and win this thing. Danville is a young squad to watch as well. Another squad to mention is Wyalusing Valley. They got walloped by a very solid General McLane team last week, but did finish runner up at Bear Mountain River Run. They've got a killer trio up front that could do some damage in this race. Individually, outside of Healey, look for Jones from Elk Lake, Puleo from Phoenixville, the aforementioned Wyalusing Valley trio, and Scranton's Josh Christianson after his winner last week.

1-Phoenixville
2-Wyalusing Valley
3- Holy Cross
4- Danville


1-Healey
2-Heeman
3-Christianson
4-Jones
5-Puleo

40th Annual Centaur Invitational-
This should be a great out of district battle between Owen J. Roberts and Twin Valley. Two state qualifiers out of AAA that still return a great core despite losing some big pieces. Outside of these two, look for Southern Lehigh and Downingtown East to be in the mix.

1-Twin Valley
2-OJR
3-Southern Lehigh

1- Blatz
2-Schlegel

Abington Invitational-
Lots of District one teams coming out to play in this one. Council Rock South will be the team to watch as they cruised to demolition in their opening tri-meet. North Penn always finds a way to build up a state contending team. Great Valley returns a decent group from last year and has a good shot at taking the title from this meet. Methacton has a decent balance of a front runner in Matt Varghese and a handful of guys around 17 flat. No big powerhouses in this meet, but definitely a couple bubble district 1 teams that will look to make a case for themselves this weekend. Individually, look for Jason Cornelison to go out and dominate this field, with Methacton's Matt Varghese putting up a formidable performance behind him.

1-Council Rock South
2-Great Valley

Mill Street Run-
Smaller meet, but couple fun names to watch. Look for Jenkintown to try and kickoff their campaign for a A team title. Look for Pennsbury to challenge that, who although lost a big group to graduation, always finds a way to be relevant.

Unionville Two Mile Bash-
Look for a big contingent of district one teams to get an early season 2 mile in. I don't take too much from these kinds of races, but Unionville themselves are absolutely a team that can make some noise statewide this year.

PTXC 10-
Saved the biggest for last. I'm just going to say right now that I am disregarding Loudon Valley's presence entirely. I'm previewing this as if they aren't even there. As I'm typing up this recap, I'm realizing a lot of teams are registered for this meet that were signed up for other meets as well (Holy Cross, Twin Valley, Phoenixville Area, Council Rock South), so I guess we'll have to wait and see how things play out and where teams choose to send their guys. Lets run through some of the big name programs listed here. CB East, CB West, Cumberland Valley, Lower Dauphin, Manheim Township, Mechanicsburg, Parkland, Spring Ford, Warick, Wyomissing, and Wallenpaupack. A lot of these teams are making debuts, so this should be a REALLY fun meet to watch. As we narrow this group down a bit, I look for CB east, Parkland, Wyomissing, and Mechanicsburg to have the best shot at being at the front. Individually, look for Tyler Wirth to be one of the only guys to be able to hang with the LV group. Other names to be up towards the front include Endres, McComb, Rome, Zawislak, Knepper, Kuhn, and Williamson. A big sleeper to watch is Nate Grucelski of Conestoga Valley. He doesn't have the best cross resume on paper, but the CV standout dropped ridiculous PR's in the 9:30's and 4:20's out of nowhere last spring, so his potential to step up is very much there. This course usually isn't one to produce the fastest times, but we could see some big jumps from guys in terms of progress.

1-CB East
2-Twin Valley
3-Wyomissing
4-Parkland

1-Wirth
2-McComb
3-Zawislak
4-Kuhn
5-Endres