First off I would like to give my sincere congrats to Mt. Lebanon on earning the top spot on Penntrack's team rankings this week. They completely deserve this honor and have had some very nice early season races.
That being said, here's my stat:
North Allegheny hasn't lost at WPIALs since 2004.
In 2004 when NA did last lose, they had a top five that featured three freshman and no seniors and dropped 178 points on the championship course.
Since that time they have scored under 100 points at every championship, averaged just a shade under 71 points per. Not to mention that during a three year span from 2006 to 2008 the team from Wexford scored a combined 162 points at the meet. In the past five seasons North Allegheny has been 3rd twice, 2nd once and 1st this past season at the State Championships.
In 2007 the team was a highly praised favorite for the State Championship, however they were underwhelming at the big meets like Carlisle and states. On top of that, they lost their top two runners from the previous year who were 9th and 12th at states, with sub 16 times on their resume. Needless to say people didn't expect what they saw in 2008.
NA ended up in the top 15 at Nationals behind a tight spread and guys like Chase Broussard and Eric Balaban taking a step from JV nobody to household name. If not for a string of bad luck at states the team may have been gold, but they ended up off the medal stand behind surprise team LaSalle.
So in 2009 when they lost three of their top 5 runners from a National qualifier there was not much hope for a better finish at states. Except North Allegheny managed to finish better at states. Taking 2nd with a 3rd place finish by Gil and some random runners like Cadwaller pulling through in the clutch.
But again they lost a bunch of guys from the 2009 squad so could they continue to stay on top? Well in 2010 they proved all the doubters wrong behind a Gold medal from Ryan Gil despite struggling through a broken foot all season and finishing just 4th at the District Championships behind 3 guys wearing the same jersey.
Admittedly, the past few years its been close. Baldwin has ran a couple very solid races at the WPIAL course and given NA a run for their money, but still guys like Mike Meehan come from seemingly thin air and help carry the team back to the top.
And this year its not Baldwin who NA will be competing with at the stretch run for the WPIAL title, its Mt. Lebanon. Baldwin historically always had huge performances at the WPIAL Championsips, before somewhat large let downs at states. Guys like TJ Hobart and Dave Adley had their best races of the season at Cooper's Lake. Meanwhile guys like Alex Moran have gotten smacked around a little at WPIALs. Moran was 8th there a year ago and 14th at states. Gunzenhauser was beaten by 13 seconds for the title in 2009 by Ryan Gil, who he flipped the script on the next week at states, nearly taking the title. Moran didn't make it to states in 2009 in a surprising turn of events. He missed it by just one spot.
So why should history be different this year? Is there any reason to believe someone like Vincent Tonzo will stay hidden in the middle of race results for NA when he is coming off a killer 1:55 800 performance in the spring? Is Sam Bojarski really going to continue hovering around 17 flat when he ran 4:24 on the track a few months ago?
And these two aren't even a part of the returners from the team that WON the state championship a year ago.
Good luck to everybody else.
-train
So now its time to let us know what you think. Vote for who you think will win the WPIAL this season on the poll on the side bar and feel free to drop me a comment with your opinion.
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