Pre States: Is it an Advantage?

This year a boat load of teams flocked to the state championship course at Hershey to test their skills on PA's toughest and most important course. This year was probably the deepest year in the meet's brief history and included arguably the best two teams in the state: O'Hara and North Allegheny (they will currently sit 1 and 3 respectively for me after this weekend's action, but that is a conversation for another post). But are these teams really getting an advantage from their decision to brave the hills?

Statistically speaking no AAA boys squad has won states after competing at Foundation. The AA schools have faired much better with teams like North East and Quaker Valley grabbing double golds in the Foundation meet and the state meet. North Penn, who has won 3 of the past 5 state championships (the Foundation meet just had its 6th running this Saturday) has never even insinuated that they would like to run on the grueling Hershey course.

Personally, I ran in the JV race at Hershey at the Prestates meet in 2008. I had my best race of the season at that point and so did most of my teammates. We won the JV race team title and the Varsity race title. My friend and I took 2nd and 3rd in the JV race and our lead runner Mike Palmisano finished in 3rd place overall. We felt we had a great team that could compete for a state title and that this meet would give us valuable experience.

The next weekend our team blew up at the Carlisle Invitational. A combination of muddy weather and a hard race at Hershey most likely tanked our team for that race. Very few guys had great days, I personally had one of my worst races in my high school career, going from 18:31 at Hershey to 19:56 at Carlisle. It was a rough time. So clearly trying to go hard back to back weeks like we did was not a smart move, and we have not gone back to the Foundation meet since. At the state meet we were 5th that year, the same as the year before, in arguably a deeper field but with also, arguably, a better team.

Individual wise there have been some great success stories. In the first year of the meet Mark Dennin took down the gold. He then went on to stun the field at states in a commanding victory. Izewski, Jones, Crits and Jacob all finished in the top 10 at states after competing in the Pre State meet. Topper, Taylor, Stauffer and Cipro all surprised with medals at states after not so impressive Foundation meet results.

This past year Conner Quinn and Dan Savage both had excellent races after racing the Foundation meet. In the past guys like Matt Kacyon and Tom Kehl have excelled at states after racing Foundation. Brett Kelly this past season was a notable example of experience triumphing. I would bet there are plenty of individuals who believe they have benefited from running the state meet course multiple times.

However, Conner Quinn and Hatboro Horsham chose not to return to the Foundation meet this year.

Its hard to see where the line can be drawn between talent prevailing because talent shows up for this meet, and where the benefits actually come into play.

Brendan Shearn, Dan Jaskowak, Connor Harriman, Ean DiSilvio, O'Hara, Pottsgrove, and North Allegheny will look to prove the theory one way or the other this fall.