A Week of Reflection: State Recap Part II

Hello folks, as promised, here is the second half of our state recaps! While it might seem like this took a little long to get out given that states was now a full week ago, I actually decided to do this on purpose. While I'm sure its a little annoying, I was hoping the discussion would continue on the first post. I felt that after I recapped the XC state meet, there was such a steady drop off in viewership and content for the page, that I thought that spacing these things out a bit more would allow for continued and prolonged traffic for the site. I won't keep you all waiting any longer though, so lets dive into the action!

3000:
Despite all of the craziness that went on at the state meet this past weekend, the 3000 was one of the few events that went pretty much as expected. Similarly to XC, the long distances were dominated by the western PA kids. However, this time around, Zach Kinne finally got his long-awaited first PA gold. Despite the high caliber field, Kinne threw down the most impressive distance performance of the day, blowing away the field in a runaway fashion. His time of 8:33 is a top 5 time nationally, and was only two seconds off of Rusty's winning time last year. I found this part to be really impressive, because while Rusty went on a tear week after week last year, this was only Kinne's 3rd race of the year. I think the Duke commit still has a lot of upside heading into the spring, and I just don't see him losing the 3200 outdoors.

Behind Kinne though, we saw some great battles for the rest of the medals. The glorified 1-2 finish for NA that we talked about in XC came to fruition in this race, with McGoey throwing down a massive kick to barely eek out fellow WPIAL junior Zach Leachman for the silver. Jack Miller was many people's top pick to go out and challenge Kinne, and although that was not the case, the Jenkintown senior put up a great result of 8:51 and 4th place. For someone who was criticized for not living up to his XC performances on the track, Miller has now cemented himself as truly, one of the best distance runners in the state.

Rounding out the top 5 in this race was the Wyomissing junior Ben Kuhn. There were a lot of impressive aspects of Kuhn's race in my opinion. The range of being a 3000 state medalist and a key piece on a sub 8:10 relay is rare. On top of that, Kuhn opened up his season very early, racing on opening weekend back in early December. Typically, guys that race that hard and often over the course of the winter season can justifiably fizzle out before the postseason, so for Kuhn to be this consistent all year is an impressive feat in itself.

Ian Miller might be the least talked about runner in PA to have 3+ state medals. This was his second consecutive year medaling in the 3000, and after finishing 13th in XC, it seems as if Miller is inching closer and closer to a breakthrough race that puts him in the conversation as one of the best long distance guys in all of PA.

Two juniors in Andrew Healey and Christian Fitch rounded out the medalists. This was the first indoor state championship for both of these guys, and they walked away with hardware with one year still left on their resumes. These guys were 9:29 and 9:32 as just sophomores, and while Fitch will have his hands full in AAA, the Healey v Miller matchup in AA outdoor is shaping up to be wild.

Tough day for Brayden Harris to be the first out of the medals, but it should go without saying that this kid had an incredible season. He was the only sophomore or freshman in the field, and he ended up getting his team into the medals for the DMR anyways. Make no mistake, this youngster is one of the bright spots for PA's future.

DMR:
Although I got 7 of the 8 medalists in this race, I still really wasn't all that close. The DMR was a race where, in my preview, people seemed adamant about certain programs winning. I picked Haverford in an upset, some saw Seneca Valley defending their title with ease, while others like Jiminy Cricket justifiably believed that Downingtown West would assert their consistent postseason power and take the title. Popular commenter Yifter with the correct call though!

After a full season of talking about how I thought they didn't have enough firepower, LaSalle went out and dominated the field, blowing away the competition in a US #5 10:23.32. Watching the race, it became increasingly clear that LaSalle was the class of the field, as the relay of Twomey, Sieberlich, Costonis, and Ghantous eased away from the field with every respective leg. Their splits of roughly 3:09~50~1:59high~4:24 were a balanced attack that no other teams had a response for. I thought putting Twomey on the leadoff and trusting Sieberlich on the anchor was a really bold move, and clearly they were rewarded. Once Twomey outkicked Macknair on the 1200 leg for the lead, the rest was history.

Mifflin County does deserve a lot of credit though. A lot of people (including myself) thought their lack of experience mixed with some tough doubles would lead to their demise. Yet, a hard-fought leadoff leg for Macknair put the squad towards the front of the race, and they never really lost their spot back in 2nd.

The excitement of the came for the 3rd-8th spots. Downingtown West, Seneca Valley, and Haverford all started reeling Harris in on the anchor, but just ran out of room, Ketler in particular looked like he was really charging hard to catch guys in the last 100 meters or so. I wish the race coverage at least panned to the chase pack at some points, but the focus was really all on LaSalle's dominant performance. I was glad to see Twin Valley did end up snagging a medal after going all in on the event.

Because of the lack of coverage of the rest of the field, I couldn't really tell who the pieces of the other relays were. Did Anderson even run for Mt. Lebanon? If so, I'm a little disappointed with the boys from Lebo, because they would've had to just ran average to give Anderson the chance to try and run down most of the field.

Kudos to Lower Merion, as they were the one squad that snuck into the medals that I didn't pick to break the top 8.

4x8:
The first distance event of the day was a victory for me as someone who was trying to call the events. As I made pretty clear, I was going all in on Pennridge to win this thing, and I was very confident in this pick despite knowing how close the race was going to be. But nevertheless, Matt Eissler clutched up and helped the boys in white and green grab the title. As expected, Andersen Dimon bumped up in distance to leadoff the relay and give the squad an early lead. State College, CB West, and Pennridge continued to break off from the pack, and it seemed like a three team race heading into the last leg.

While Eissler may have anchored his relay to a state gold, he was far from the fastest split.

As already pointed out by one of our commenters, an absolutely herculean effort by Collin Ochs singlehandedly carried his Council Rock South squad from way 20+ meters back from the lead pack, into a 2nd place, and he nearly caught Eissler too. His reported 1:52 split is absolutely legit, and its a shame, because I think this effort took a little too much out of his legs, as I'm sure he had higher aspirations for the open 800. But make no mistake, that anchor leg from Ochs shows that he is jut as talented as any other 800 runner in the state right now. District 1 has Eissler, Zeh, Ochs, Hoey, Zelinsky, and all the Central Bucks West guys. Like last year, it is going to be absolute madness to just try and make the state meet out of District 1.

How can you not root for State College at this point? Despite having no established names in the middle distance landscape heading into the season, they somehow, for yet another year, ump out a sub 8 relay that will contend for state gold. Whether its the coaching, the team culture, or something else, this program has to be commended for its extreme consistency of performing at an elite level, regardless of the pieces they're given.

The same should go for CB West. Although they were picked as contenders to win, they were in contention for the duration of the race, and just couldn't quite hang on during the wild close in the last 100 meters. Because of the pack at the front, their 4th place makes it seem as if they were back in the middle of the race, but if Eissler gets the baton in front and doesn't sit on Fehrman (?) on the anchor leg, this race could unfold an entirely different way.

Congrats to the Indiana Area boys, who, were emphatic in their belief that they would prove some people wrong this weekend. Well, sometimes you gotta speak things into existence. They dropped an 8:03.96, and snagged a medal in 7th. Congrats boys.

Many fans knew it was likely that we would see a medalist from the slow heat. Although myself and a few others thought it would be Penncrest, it was the boys from CB south who dropped a lightning quick 8:03 to grab a solid 6th place medal. 

Lastly, I was glad Radnor did end up squeezing into the top 8. They were very solid in both relays this year, but there was no guarantee that they could hang towards the front of a state field. They fell short in the DMR later in the day, so it was good to see that Zeh could hold off the LaSalle squad who finished 9th, to get this program a well-deserved medal.

Well folks, I know you're probably not thrilled with the wait, but I decided it would be for the best. As for nationals, I'll be throwing up a list of entries, and hopefully we can get some good discussion going. I don't have a plan as for what I'm going to be posting next in preparation for spring, so any and all recommendations are welcomed. Hopefully you guys can take some initiative in getting some discussion started, and I can act accordingly based off of what you guys would like to see. Thank you all for your continued support, and I hope that you guys are still finding this valuable to our coverage of the sport.

Cheers,
-The RunningHub