It’s all or nothing: One meet decides section champion
There are 11 schools in Division II Section 2 for cross country, which in most years would mean that each school would have 10 dual meets against its competition to determine a champion.
Technically, that’s what happened.
In reality, however, it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Instead of going through the chore of scheduling 10 different matches, all the grueling bus rides and breaking off training sessions for midweek meets, t he coaches got together and opted instead to have one meet to decide the section championship.
“My particular take on that is dual meets, whether it’s cross country or track, they’re reminiscent of cinder tracks and straddle-jump high jumping,” Winchester Thurston coach Bruce Frey said. “Cross country and track are more centered to invitationals on the weekends.”
With that in mind — and with some cajoling — the Section 2 AA/ A coaches agreed in unison to have one meet with all the schools to decide both the boys and girls section titles last Tuesday.
To make the event happen, all 12 coaches had to be in agreement. Anyone who opposed would have put the kibosh on the experiment.
“I think it’s a big advantage because you obviously don’t have to run as many races,” Our Lady of the Sacred Heart coach Jim Hamilton said. “It’s just hard to get everyone to agree to it.”
Because of the way meets are electronically scored, larger meets and invitationals can be broken down into individual dual meets by using runner placement against each school. Both the WPIAL and PIAA list the dual meet results as part of the final tally each year.
By doing so, each team will have what amounts to a section record. In this instance, the Eden Christian boys won the section title and went undefeated, as did the Winchester Thurston girls even though they only ran one section meet.
“What can happen is, in particular at the Single A level, you can have some incredible mismatches,” Frey said. “What we’re trying to avoid is taking a bus to a school that has three girls and two boys on Team A and Team B has one boy and four girls, which can happen in Class A because that’s a fundamental reality.”
On the surface, it may appear to beam ore efficient way of doing things. But there will always be pushback from traditionalists.
“The problem you run into is they want to have Senior Day and you can do it many different ways to have Senior Day,” Hamilton said. “But everyone wants to have Senior Day on that one home meet. Honestly, I think the [fewer] races, the better.”
By having that one section meet at this point in the season, it also allows those teams to spend nearly a month running intervals during the week, invitationals on the weekends and training almost exclusively for the WPIAL and PIAA meets.
“You have a collegiate schedule where you train hard on Monday and Wednesday, you recover
Thursday and race Saturday,” Frey said. “I’ve sought this for decades. This is what you try to do.”
The Foundation
With all of its section meets out of the way, Winchester Thurston can now concentrate on getting both its boys and girls teams back to the WPIAL and PIAA finals.
On the whole, it would be difficult to argue with the Bears results.
Winchester Thurston placed third overall for the Class 1A boys with 128 points, 57 behind Jenkintown and 29 in back of Central Cambria. Sophomore Eli DeSimone finished sixth overall and was the top finisher among WPIAL competitors.
For the girls, the Bears finished second, just seven points in back of York Catholic, with 96 points. Senior Cyd Kennard had the top finish for the team as she came in 12th.
Aquinas Academy junior Alexis Abbett had the best overall finish for WPIAL competitors as she crossed the line in third behind Grace Neubert of Elk County Catholic and Madeline Murphy of York Catholic.
No WPIAL individual runners won boys titles in the event, but Peters Township senior Brett Kroboth was second in Class 3A with a 16:03 that put him nine seconds behind Hatboro Horsham’s Brian DiCola. North Allegheny sophomore Jack Bertram was third, two seconds behind Kroboth.
North Allegheny, the defending boys and girls state champion, won the boys division with 63 points ,79 fewer than second-place Man heim Township. The Tigers also won the Class 3A girls team title with 54 points, 72 better than State College, led by third- place overall finisher Wren Kucler.
Pine- Richland senor Natalie McLean, who finished ninth in the WPIAL Class 3A championships and 84th in the state finals last year, won the event in 18:25, beating Mt. Lebanon junior Logan St. John Kletter by six seconds.
Brownsville senior and N. C. State recruit Jolena Quarzo took first place in Class 2A with a 18:38 that was 20 seconds faster than Montour senior Harley Kletz.
Montour tied Central Cambria for the Class 2A team title with 97 points but finished second to the District 6 powerhouse because of the finish of each team’s sixthplace runner.