PIAA Foundation Preview

Now I am certainly not penntrack, and I don't have the resources to do my own show describing my picks for the upcoming weekend and all that good stuff, I'll give you the best thing I can and that's a preview of this weekend's biggest meet, located in Hershey PA.

In the A race, the Northeast Bradford boys headline the field with ET#8 Sam Williams and ET#19 Curt Jewett looking to take down the individual gold. The teammates ran great at PTXC two weekends back taking 1st and 5th in a loaded field. Williams is coming off a terrific double medal outdoor campaign and is off to the fastest start he has had in all of his cross country seasons. In addition, he has consistently had his best races at the state course. He won the Pre State AA race last year in convincing fashion, finishing with a time faster than AAA winner Sam Hibbs and eventual state champ Conner Quinn. Jewett boasts a 4:16 PR and one of the best training partners in the state in Williams, however, historically the states course has been less than kind to Jewett. He was 19th last year at AA states while his teammate Williams, who he had been stride for stride with all year, was 4th. Luke Jones will look to avoid being overlooked in this field. He beat both Williams and Jewett in his first race of the season and was 2nd at AA states last year. He will look to establish himself as the favorite to win the A state championship in this race. The Archer twins from Vincentian Academy are also in the field. Ryan Archer has already broken 16 minutes this season and Alex is looking to step back up to his twin brother's shoulder. Both are sleeper picks in this race, one could possibly take the victory. Hunter Johnston is also a name to remember from Saegertown. Smathers and Galassi ran last year at this race but are not listed as of the writing of this article for this years race. Throw them in the mix and things could be very interesting.

In AA we should get an early look at the team title contenders. Quaker Valley, Grove City, Pottsgrove and Holy Redeemer are all on the team list for the AA race and all have their eyes on state gold this fall. Quaker Valley is the defending AA state champions and, although they lose some key pieces, do return guys like Roy Hadfield who should hopefully mix it up with the front group and snag a AA medal. However, Grove City has started the season extremely well and has moved onto the ET top teams list. Jaskowak will have individual glory on the line as well as he faces Brendan Shearn in an exciting individual battle. After a slow start, Shearn had a dramatic come from behind victory over Tony Russell and shot up to take the #1 spot on the rankings. The momentum is going his way. Jaskowak has had a been a rough patch compared to the high expectations he recieved from yours truly, but still has a ton of potential and ran a great race to get 2nd at states last fall, a race that should give him some confidence at Hershey. But the real name to watch in this race may be ET #9 Dominic Deluca, the Junior from Dallas, who stormed to two impressive 2nd place finishes to start the year. He lost to only Galassi in his opening race (beat Williams, Jewett, Jones and more) and then lost to Williams in a sprint finish the next weekend at PTXC. If he has another solid race he may be in the mix at the finish for the win. He isn't a big name yet, but he has major upside in this race. Ian Yanusko from Pottsgrove as well as Tyler Stelmack, Aziz Yousif and Shawn Regan should all be in the mix for a top spot behind the two big name front runners.

In the AAA race, Pennsbury, who comes off a close victory over CRNorth will be looking to have a bounce back race as they look to prove they deserve to be one of the states top ranked teams. They will have their hands full with O'Hara and North Allegheny, two teams with tight packs and impressive starts to the season. NA has a great pack of guys with an absurdly tight spread. They are led by Josh Zemet outfront, but followed closely by a string of underclassmen, including 3 sophomores who have the potential to be in the top 10 in the WPIAL by seasons end. O'Hara was considered by most to be the best team in PA last year but suffered an unfortunate defeat at season's end. This year the youngster Kevin James appears to have taken a quantam leap forward and Pitone and Savage are along for the ride. This front 3 looked dynamic at Belmont and Chris Pastore and Jim Belfatto will look to shrink the spread behind them as they try and beat a hard nosed North Allegheny team. I expect Savage to bounce back and take the reigns for O'Hara and they will need him. If Zemet and the NA guys prove they are on level with guys like Pitone and James, NA is a threat for not only a state title, but a national berth in the difficult Northeast Region. Pennsbury, Lower Dauphin, Mt. Lebanon and LaSalle (without Coyle) are all ranked teams competing in this race. Whichever team steps up and competes well with not only improve drastically in the team rankings, but will also have much needed confidence for the state meet.

In the individual AAA race, ET #6 Connor Harriman will look to bounce back after a tough dual meet performance against CRN. He has had a ton of success in this course, finishing 10th last year at the state meet and running very well at the pre state meet where he beat Conner Quinn in 2011. His young sophomore teammate Sam Webb is coming on strong, beating Harriman in the most recent dual meet. He may be a surprise name. My pick for the title, however, is Jeff Groh, the Junior from Lower Dauphin. He won the D3 Championships on this course last year as a sophomore and started of his season very well at PTXC finishing fourth. Groh's teammate Cole Nissley is also a factor if he can overcome some of his difficult history on the challenging Hershey hills. D3 rival Evan Williams is also a veteran on these hills and will look to compete with top group and break onto the rankings. Dan Savage was 4th at states last fall and despite a somewhat disappoint opening meet, should be a contender for the title at this race. He comes on strongest at the end of the season, but I'm sure he wants to be mixing it up with the states best. That means James and Pitone should be running with the top pack as well. We should finally see how the WPIAL stacks up against the boys out east as well. Right now I have the NA boys pretty low on my individual list and the same can be said about Mt Lebo's squad. Both teams have something to prove and guys like Zemet and Roddy should show up big. Ean DiSilvio from Allerdice is a defending state medalist and a sub 16 5k guy. He can't be counted out from the top  group in a race like this. A deep sleeper for you is Alec Brand who has had a quietly impressive start to his season. If he runs the hills well he may pick off some of the guys who went out a little  over their head. Also Jon Colwell of Mifflin County could be a factor. He runs the state course well and with teammate Addison Monroe may be able to surprise some people. Returning medalist Chris Culley is also a name to watch if he can recapture his past state magic.