As Requested AA and A Teams

First off, I wasn't purposely trying to leave off the AA and A teams, I just couldn't find any that looked worthy of being top 10 at this point in the season. Quaker Valley last year was a clear cut top 10 squad, but this year there is no Quaker Valley.

So I'll do my best to throw out some teams to watch in no particular order of the AA and A variety. Let's see if we can find this year's Quaker Valley .....

Let's start with Quaker Valley. Ironically enough, the defending AA champs look like they have the potential to be solid again. They return 4 from their top 7 a year ago including Roy Hadfield and are historically a top notch AA team year in and year out. They won the 4x8 outdoors in impressive fashion. They dominated the AA competition a year ago in XC as well. However, they do lose a lot of key pieces like LJ Westwood and Nat Fox who were both multiple state medalists (Westwood has his fair share of state gold at this point). They opened up well this season, placing 7th at the competitive RWB invite despite a bit of an off race from Hadfield.

Also highlighted in that RWB race is new AA team Grove City. They have the big time front runner that most of these small schools can't boast of and they rode Jaskowak's abilities to a 3rd place finish at RWB (ahead of Fox Chapel, who made my top 10 teams list). I think Fox Chapel looks like a better team when you throw in their JV runner and their slightly tighter spread, but Grove City had great races from their top 5 guys, everyone was 17:13 or under. If they can narrow the spread to Jaskowak they won't be to vulnerable in bigger races. Sophomore Aaron Benka is now to Jaskowak what Jaskowak was to Jacob Kildoo. Interesting thought to keep in mind.

Then there are a few teams like Northeast Bradford who have two tremendous front runners, but need to sure up a group of 5 guys to help them place well at the A state championships. I'm not sure what kind of depth it is going to take to win a meet like but having two potential top 5 guys is a nice start.

Vincentian Academy (also A) has the Archer bros out front to lead them. Ryan was sub 16 to start the season and Alex has the potential to be just as good. Similar to NEBradford, they need to sure up that pack.

There are also teams like Dallas to consider, who mixed it up with Scranton Prep early in the season and return a solid crew from the District 2 Championship in AA last year. Deluca has developed into a very good front runner for their squad.

Other teams to watch are North East with Ryan Smathers, Holy Redeemer, and Oswayo Valley in their respective divisions. Both return a decent amount of finishers from last years efforts.