Key Returners: Brent Kennedy (Jr), Tyler Snider (Sr), Patrick Miller (Jr), Justin Stascak (Sr)
Key Losses: Richard Lednak
Notable Track Performances: Kennedy 1:56/4:19/9:31, Miller 1:56/4:31, Snider 9:44
The Kiski boys were one of the new up and coming studs in the WPIAL and took the final spot in a very tough D7 Championships in brutal conditions. They then followed it up at the state meet with a solid 9th place finish as a team led by a big time 7th place finish by Brent Kennedy who was just a sophomore. Kennedy was one of the most consistent runners of the year and he was clutch all XC season into the track seasons where he anchored his DMR relay to a medal and then helped their 4x8 medal outdoors. He then stole a medal in the open 1600m in one of the toughest doubles to pull of in Shippensburg. He could do no wrong with success at every distance. All of this as just a sophomore.
Lednak, however, is a valuable piece to the team's success and he is gone. He was always a solid two miler and big part of the team's success at WPIALs. Yet he is the only big piece missing from the states squad of 2011. 5 of the team's top 6 from Hershey are returning this season including two guys making the sophomore to junior jump which usually brings big results. Pat Miller, the team's 4th man from states in 2011, ran a 1:56 split on the state's 4x8 squad. Tyler Snider ran a 9:44 last spring which makes him a solid 3rd man for this squad. Then after those 3 things are a little more dicey. Justin Stascak, the team's 5th man in 2011 at Hershey, ran his fastest time of the season at Hershey which is impressive, but it was only an 18:18. Tyler Lookabough is the other returner for this squad, but he was 31 seconds behind Stascak and 2:33 behind Kennedy, which would make for quite the huge spread on this squad.
Kennedy is an outstanding front runner and has potential to compete for the state championship as an individual and is the favorite in an always tough WPIAL, but this Kiski team has to deal with North Allegheny who is always good and has very solid returners, 3 of their top 7. And North Allegheny has dominated the WPIALs in the last decade and that makes it tough for Kiski to get respect and to get a top 5 finish at states. Look at Lebo, they were very, very good all season but NA still bested them at crunch time.
Kiski has a great leader, a solid top 3, but some big question marks after that. The surer they can get those 4-5 legs, the better this team will do as the season hits crunch time.
Project Top 5 By Season's End
Kennedy (ET #6), Miller, Snider, Stascak, Lookabough
The biggest challenge in the WPIAL will be making the state meet as a team. With the new classification system the WPIAL will only get 3 teams instead of 4. NA and Mt. Lebo will be tough as usual. Fox Chapel has a strong group coming back and should challenge for the third spot along with Pine Richland. The big question mark is the impact of the fifth runner with fewer teams in each classification. Only two of the individual qualifiers were from a current AA team (Mars). The WPIAL had a solid group of sophomores in 2011 so I would look for a better WPIAL representation at the state meet for the individual title.
ReplyDeleteSo uh....anything new soon?
ReplyDeleteYea seriously
ReplyDeletePine Richland are you serious?! its clearly gonna be lebo na kiski and fox chapel. only three of those four will go. no one else can touch them in the wpial team wise.
ReplyDelete