Penn Relays: DMR

This is going to be heavily discussed (I hope) up until the big day and perhaps after, so I figure I should get things started early. There are a fantastic 6 PA teams in this field! The race includes the top 3 indoor 4xMile's in the nation as well as a CBA, St. Benedict's and O'Hara who were 3 of the top DMR teams at Nats. I won't lie to you and say I know a lot about the team's outside of PA.

Obviously CBA will be in the mix for the win as they are year in and year out. They are going to need to push hard to run away from this field, however, because of Ed Cheserek, a potential sub 4 anchor leg. In addition, Tony Russell has proven he can run down CBA out front so don't count him out.

For the sake of discussion on here, I'm going to just take a look at the PA squads in the race and give some analysis on them.

Let's start out with Pennsbury. I've seen very limited results on the Pennsbury guys after their solid indoor season campaign, so I hope they are in solid shape still. If they are Pennsbury is a great sleeper pick in this race. The DMR at Penn is a bit packed on the 1200 leg and if you can set yourself up well on that leg then sometimes your team can surprise people. Think Joey Waddington and CB South a few years back. Connor Harriman is just the lead of leg to do it (assuming they choose not to anchor him which they have yet to do this year). Harriman, if he is on his game, could surprise with a 3:05ish split in this race and set up the relay for success. They have a slew of good 400 guys who will keep them in contention and Liam O'Connell is a very underrated 800 man. I'm a big fan of Sam Webb running gutsy on the anchor. It's tough to imagine Webb will run anything faster than around 4:18 or so, I don't think he quite has the leg speed for it, but I know he will give it a great effort.

Pennsbury's main in conference rivals will be in the race as well: Council Rock North. CRN is an interesting squad as they will have a 2 miler running the lead off in Mac Emery. Emery had a very impressive run indoors at states, mixing it up with the leaders and showing no fear. He was able to move up through the pack but running consistent splits. Hopefully in a crowded Penn field he can still use that tactic and get CRN out front on his leg. At 800m, Rob Simmons is another CRN man who had a breakout race at the state championship. He split around 1:56 going out very, very hard to catch the leaders. Simmons has still yet to launch under 2 minutes in the open 800, but the potential is there. On the anchor is James Zingarini, who has run 4:18 multiple times now in his career and ran a great anchor leg indoors in the DMR. Zingarini will have his hands full in this race filled with guys of his ability. His style of running will really benefit from a competitive anchor leg where the pace will be fast the whole way and it won't be a kicker's race.

Strath Haven was neck and neck with CRN indoors, but can they repeat the feat outdoors? Huemmler must think his team's odds are good because he bailed on the individual mile to chase a fast DMR time with his team, a very admirable decision. But right now, Dylan Butera and company need to step up their game to get Huemmler the stick in contention. Butera ran a very solid indoor 1200m leg but he is going to need to take another step forward to get his team to the front pack. At 800m, Haven has a few guys closing in on the 2 minute barrier, if their leg can dip under it would be a huge lift to their relay chances. At anchor you know what your going to get, Huemmler is a beast who is not afraid of going out hard and trying to chase team's down. He has a 4:12 PR and is the indoor state champ in the mile. If his squad is contention when he gets the baton watch out.

Ultimately, I see these 3 teams being fairly close at Penn, but not quite mixing it up for the win. On the other hand I think there are 3 PA teams that can surprise for the W at Penn ....

Let's take a look first at the boys from O'Hara. In my mind they are the hot team right now, running very solid and carrying a lot of momentum. Kevin James has been a fantastic lead off leg for them throughout the season and has been rolling with a fast 1500 and a 9:15 3200m! I don't know if that will translate directly into his speed, but it should be at least somewhat beneficial. Boyle and Belfatto are coming off solid 800m PRs and Belfatto has already proven he can split 1:55ish in a national caliber race. That leaves Dan Savage who has run some solid 5k and 32 times as of late, but hasn't moved up to the mile since Nats (unless he anchors the team's DMR at the track classic which won easily). Savage split 4:16 that race, a really impressive time that I wasn't expecting. To keep O'Hara out front when he gets the stick he is going to need another carry of that caliber or faster. I wouldn't be surprised if Savage gets the baton in first place and that is going to make for a tough job on the anchor leg.

Now we look at LaSalle who has been rolling for quite some time with a healthy Coyle back to anchor the relay. They won a pair of relays down South and then returned home for some solid races back in PA. It was nothing mind blowing, but Stone and Coyle both ran similar 800m marks to a year ago at the same meet in a slower race. That may indicate that both are ready to repeat their mammoth splits from Penn a year ago. If Coyle and Stone can run 3:04 and 4:12 they are in very good position  Magee has had a bit of ups and downs but his 1:55 indoors is still fresh in my mind. I think he might have even been able to go faster with the right competition. I don't know if he will be able to hit that mark at Penn, but if he can run anywhere close to it, LaSalle is set up very nicely behind the two big guns on the relay.

Lastly there is Henderson, a team always discussed on this blog with a lot of potential to have their breakout DMR here at Penn. Henderson's big gun is Tony Russell who split 4:11y indoors. Any split under 4:10 would be close to the fastest split in the field (fastest besides Cheserek) and would be a truly amazing accomplishment for the Junior. His teammates are going to have to set him up to hit that mark and still be competitive. Barchet will be the big leg. He dropped his 1200 time nicely at the windy DTW meet so there is clearly potential there to break out. He is going to have to get out hard and mix it up out front to set up Russell on the anchor. Moy has made nice strides as of late in the 800m. He isn't the big name that Chaborek is and doesn't have the big PRs, but Moy could be a 1:56 guy in the right race. He ran 1:58 open just recently and has a great group of training partners. The Henderson team hasn't been on this Penn Relays DMR stage as of late, but they did just fine at NBIN not too long ago so I doubt they are intimidated by the big stage.

Ultimately I guess I should probably make a prediction so I can get bashed later for being wrong but it at least gives us something fun to talk about for the next couple weeks. Here is the order of my PA teams:
LaSalle
O'Hara
Henderson
Pennsbury
CRN
Strath Haven

We will see what goes down, but hopefully PA takes the Gold, gets at least one guy under 4:11 and puts 3 teams under 10:10.