Weeknd #3 Quick Preview

Hard to believe we're already on our 3rd weekend of XC folks! With a lot of meets this weekend as well as a lot of team rankings to work on, I'm going to try and keep this week's preview a little more terse and to the point. Always time for more in-depth analysis during the recaps!

White Clay Creek Classic-
Another grade by grade meet, but at least its a 5k. Keep an eye on what the boys from Unionville drop in their 5k debut on the season.

23rd Annual Ben Bloser Bulldog XC Invite-
Always exciting when we get runners back on the Big Spring course! Hard to give a ton of predictions with a limited amount of teams listed on penntrack's attendance, but what I'm looking at here is a big D3 clash with Oxford hopping in. Hopefully this helps settle some of the madness out in District 3, and also give us a better idea of where Oxford stands against some stronger competition.

66th Annual George School Invite-
Big private school field here, with some PIAA schools hopping in as well as some out of state teams. Team wise, it will be interesting to see what GFS puts out, having gradually lost a lot of their top guys over the past two years. I picked wrong on them last week, but watch out for Phoenixville in this race. With some racing under their belt now, I'll be interested to see how they stack up against the private school talent from eastern PA. Individually, hometown George School senior Jeffrey Love will look to pick up his first win of the season after losing to Miller last week. However, watch out for a big sleeper in Collin Hess from Malvern Prep. The 16:20 freshman ran beautifully under the shadow of Peter Borger, and now has his own chance to step up and steal the spotlight.

Altoona Mt. Lion XC Invitational-
Big contingent of D6 teams out in Altoona. With State College seemingly taking the weekend off, look for Mifflin County to come through and dominate this field both as a team and individually.

Bradford Invitational-
Should be a good matchup between Elk County Catholic, Cathedral Prep, and Bradford. ECC has the defending champ in Ben Hoffman, and I think they walk away with a win from this meet as well.

Briarwood Invitational-
With no big meet out west this weekend, this is the premier meet to watch across the state. The championship section is headlined by the returning state champs LaSalle making their debut. I fully expect them to win this race, but how much they dominate the field by will give me a better idea as to just how good they are going to be. Behind LaSalle is where the real dogfight of the weekend will be. Alongside some seemingly very good out of state teams, the rest of the field looks like this: Twin Valley, West Chester East, Great Valley, North Penn. We have four teams here who are all legitimate threats to make it to Hershey. This should help clean up the D1 picture just a little more, while Twin Valley will look to assert themselves as a possible favorite out of D3 if they can pick up a big 2nd place finish here. Great Valley will have to run very well and get someone close to the front if they want to take down Lewin and the WC East squad. North Penn is a question mark. They'll be making their invitational debut, what do they have in store for us? Individually, look for Twomey and frankly half the LaSalle team to try and take down Josh Lewin and some solid out of state talent.
Unfortunately, CB East has opted to run in the Challenge race. I think they could've helped make this one of the meets of the year if they hopped in to the Championship section. Nonetheless, look for CB East to dominate the race, while Jason Cornelison will be favored for the individual title.

Bulldog Invitational- Rose Tree-
Decent contingent of D1 teams coming out to Rose Tree Media park this year. While Dwest is entered, I wouldn't be surprised if they sent out some form of a "B" team. A big question mark here is Shanahan. I can't imagine Hoey will run, but aside from that, what pieces does this team have? Aside from the graduation of Hoey, they lost Shultz to Loudon Valley, and a big piece in Jon McGrory graduated. Very interested to see what Shanahan can do this weekend. Sleeper teams to watch are Methacton and St. Joes Prep. Individually, look for Matt Varghese to go for the win.

Gingerbread/Saucony Kiski Area XC Invitational-
In western PA's biggest meet of the weekend, expect Mount Lebanon to go out and pick up a decent sized victory. There should be a fun battle behind them, with teams like Indiana Area and Fox Chapel duking it out. Individually though, we should theoretically get another great battle between Patrick Anderson and Christian Fitch.