Look at Me Now

Yes I just titled a post after a Chris Brown song, but hey, this is like my 5th post that I've made recently so cut me a tiny bit of slack.

Its fun to see guys who have been good become great. But it is way more fun to see guys who sucked become great. Ever heard of Ben Furcht? Most of the state hadn't for two years while he ran low 19s and mid 17s before running 15:53 and then under 15:10 his senior year. Hong Cho was a 2 flat guy his sophomore year when suddenly the kid started lighting it up. 1:53 high as a
Junior and a crazy 1:50 open time his senior year that culminated in a state championship.

So, since its cross season, the logical next step is to wonder where the top guys now were just 2 or three years ago before they took a few quick steps and caught the top group.

Let's look at it like this.
A lot of top guys have always been good and you always heard their names. But let's take a look at the top 5 freshman at states each of the past 3 seasons in AAA just to get an idea.
2008
102 Ned Willig
144 Logan Steiner
165 Lawtin Tellin
171 Chris Muldoon
224 Alex Moran

A few interesting names in there. Tellin and Muldoon still made the rankings this year, but certainly they are not top 5 guys. The other three are household names.

2009
74 Jon Faye
100 Ean DiSilvio
107 Dan Jaskowak
142 Alex Coburn
143 Dan Savage

Another interesting set of names. Coburn and Faye have faded into relative obscurity and Jaskowak has only recently emerged as a stand out star. DiSilvio and Savage are both on the rankings.

2010
63 Reiny Barchet
86 Matt Willig
108 Jeff Groh
110 George Kelly
111 Caleb Wakeley

Interesting group, hard to say for sure where the chips will fall as it is still very early and the Sophomore's don't normally shine until the late fall when championsip season rolls around.

So like I said above, its cool to see who has always been good. Long story short
Wilson, Hibbs, Devlin, Willig, Moran, and Steiner have all been good for as long as I can remember. Shearn, Smathers, Quinn, Williams, Jewett, and Jones have all been snaging medals and mixing it up in races since this past fall.

This leaves us with a few interesting names to talk about:
Kutcha, Jaskowak, Westwood, Runco, Burke, and Davis

Yeah I suppose that's kind of a longer list than a few, but I got a little overexcited when I was looking down the list. Trust me I even cut this list down a tad. We will start with the WPIAL guys because, quite frankly the WPIAL was better last year than it has been in a while and those kids deserve some respect. Plus that covers the most guys on the list.

In 2008 Kutcha wasn't on Baldwin's top 7 guys, while Runco was the 4th man on a Pittsburgh CC squad that finished 28th. He ran just 19:03. Kutcha did, however, lead his JV squad at the TriStates JV race with an 18:11 clocking. He finished behind 9 North Allegheny JV guys.

The next year LJ Westwood found himself on a District Champion AA Quaker Valley squad running a modest 17:37 as a soph. Kutcha clocked a 17:10 as Baldwin's 5th, while Runco was no where to be found in the results.

As Juniors this trio really got off to a hot start, especially in track where Westwood and Kutcha dropped very quick times, Westwood in the 8 and Kutcha in the 3200. In XC Runco ran 16:42, Kutcha ran 16:25 and Westwood ran 16:34 and won the AA race at Districts.

As for the other names, Sean Burke he ran 17:10 at the District 2 Championships last year finishing 4th. The year before Burke ran 18:40 as a soph and finished 31st at the District Championship, way back from the tops of the field.

Jaskowak was running behind Kildoo for a while, fighting for one of the top spots in D10 but not really on the state scene. His highlight was his 50th place finish last fall.

Dan Davis was just another random North Penn piece of the puzzle his sophomore year, finishing right next to yours truly at Districts. Since then he's taken a lot of positive steps finishing in the top 30 at States last year after an up and down season to say the least.

If there's anyone else people want to know about specifically I'll be happy to do some more in depth research for you.

-train