Last year in the AAA 4x800m it took 7:52.90 to make the state finals in the 4x800m. I believe this year only Bensalem, Pennridge, Chambersburg, Cumberland Valley and Spring Ford are under that mark. Sorry if I missed a team. A few teams ran pretty solid times without the big competition of the D1 and D3 meets and can't be slept on. Nazareth and Easton in District 11, Grove City in District 10 and O'Hara in District 12 come to mind right away.
Smathers broke Sam Havko's District 10 meet record in the 1600m this past Saturday dropping a 4:14.74. Havko went on run 4:10.17 at the state meet and doubled back in 1:52. Smathers will also be shooting for the double gold. However, his main competition, Curt Jewett, failed to qualify in the 3200m (unless District 4 has 3 auto qualifiers which I didn't think they did) which means he will take his 4:16.03 PR fresh in to the 1600m against Smathers. Also worth considering is Rico Galassi who has run 4:19, but has also run 9:19.
Last year in the AAA 1600m trials we saw 7 times under 4:18 in qualifying. However, it only took a 4:23.77 to take the last spot in the finals. In the finals we saw 3 runners under 4:12 and another at 4:13, but the times overall were slower in the final medaling spots than in years past. Last year was the first time in a while (since 2008) that it took a time slower than 4:16 to medal. This year things could go either way with guys like Coyle, Magaha and Huemmler leading the group, but sleepers out in D3 like Todaro and Gerberich are also in the mix.
No Haneef Hardy in the 800m, no Ned Willig in the 1600m and no Dustin Wilson in the 3200m (technically). Thus, none of the indoor state champions will defend their titles outdoors on the distance side.
4x4 state champions indoors Penn Wood will have a very tough challenge ahead of them as Bensalem, Wilson and Swenson (as well as Pennridge in the trials) have all clocked 3:17.99 or faster. Milton Hershey is a sleeper pick, they have a 3:18 season best as a relay, but struggled to match it at the district championships. 3:20.27 was the slowest time to qualify for the finals a year ago.
4x8 state champions Pennridge have their hands full after the loss at Districts and the rise of Cumberland Valley and Chambersburg.
The AA 3200m was won in 9:31 a year ago. Shearn and Galassi ran well under those times at their district meets. Luke Jones, Josef Dipietrantonio, and Sam Williams have already beaten that mark as well this spring. Barrett Kemp ran 10 seconds faster in qualifying then he did last year when he ran 9:33 at states and Ryan DeBarbarie has a 3k PR that converts him in to the 9:30s as well.
In the AAA 3200m, the top 3 returners each won their district meet (Strynkowski, Hibbs, and Kuchta).
The top 4 finishers in the AAA 4x8 last year did not qualify this year (CB West, Abington, LaSalle, Hershey). Also 6-10 didn't qualify this year.
Out of the AAA state medalists in XC, 15 of the 25 men qualified in the 3200m at the state championship.
Should be a fun year at the state meet. Predictions are on the way once the performance list comes out. Also if you want to get on the fantasy draft action hit me up ASAP because I'm planning on getting things rolling pretty soon.
Any insight as to what happened to Eric Futch? I know you're primarily a D-guy, but he's not listed on the PIAA website's performance list.
ReplyDeleteHe got in an altercation with meet officials. Here is the whole story:
ReplyDeletehttp://delcotimes.com/articles/2012/05/20/sports/high_school/doc4fb868173aa1d282112339.txt
It will be a crime if Futch is not allowed to compete. This was the worst District 1 meet in a long time as far as poor decisions by the meet director. 1st-They decide to change the rules on heat size in the 4 x 8 so there were 4 girls heats of 9, 7, 8 and 9. There were 2 boys heats of 14 and 15. The reason that they changed this on Thursday night and told no coaches is that they were worried about having 70 girls qualified in the 800m. That race always scratches down and scratched down to 30.
ReplyDelete2nd-The meet was running way ahead of schedule on Friday like it always does. They made final call for the 800 and then when everyone was warmed up, they decided to hold up the meet for 50:00 without consulting anyone. Then, they decided to move back ahead after a 15:00 delay. It seemed like they had never run in a meet.
3rd-The Futch incident. A good meet manager would have realized what was going on and gotten the kid away from a bad situation. The people in charge have to puff out their chests and prove that they are in charge. There is no regard for the athletes. The meet managers attitude is that they put on a great meet. In fact, the meet is great despite them and because of the great athletes in District 1.
I hope e-train starts a huge protest in support of Eric Futch. If that kid misses the State meet, it would be criminal. Some of these officials don't realize that these are 16-18 year old kids with a lot of pressure on them.
Futch was severals levels beyond out of line. There's no making excuses for his behavior, no matter the situation or how 'good' he may be. Well over a hundred kids were in the same situation, against the same rude officials. No one else needed to be escorted off of the grounds by the police.
ReplyDeleteHe had all kinds of options, including his coach, other meet officials, or simply walking away. He choose to be beligerent.
Why would you expect E-train to start a huge protest? Go do it yourself and see how much support you get.
Ehhh…while I agree that Futch certainly didn't handle the situation as well as he could have, I also agree with the other commenter when he says that this incident shouldn't cost him the state meet. All he apparently did was refuse to leave the infield, it's not as if he was doing anything criminal. Also, it sounds as though Lewis(the meet director) handled the situation as badly as Futch did. He blew the entire situation way out of proportion just because one kid wasn't doing what Lewis told him to. These meet officials are more immature than the athletes some of the time.
ReplyDeleteAt the D1 meet there enough false starts in the 100m and hurdle semis for the starters not to have been at fault or at least reevaluated how long they were holding runners in the set position. Similarly the exchange zone in the 4x800s were managed poorly. I saw more confusion and more runners coming in getting in the way of runners going out than I normally see in big important HS meets.
ReplyDeleteThe point being that the the D1 meet officials were not perfect in their behavior or management of the meet. If the officials had a little more self awareness and honesty they would see that they aren't perfect or infallible enough to take such a harsh position and hold Futch out of the State Meet.