No One Could Keep Them Out

Prior to the 2012 season, the PIAA made the decision to add a third classification to the sport of Cross Country. The ripple effects of the decision were numerous, but the impact was perhaps most obvious within the borders of District 12 AAA where the number of state qualifying spots for teams was cut from 2 down to 1.

The Philadelphia Catholic League joined the PIAA prior to the 2008 Cross Country season and, since that time, produced two top 10 teams in the state every year with their top school placing in the top 3. LaSalle and St. Joe’s Prep posted top results during the early years and then O’Hara and LaSalle took over through the move to three classifications. Prior to the 2012 season, O’Hara received plenty of well-deserved hype about their chances to win a state championship, but their rivals from LaSalle were clearly contenders for a top 5 spot as well. In fact, PTXC’s rankings put LaSalle at #3 in the preseason rankings behind only the golden children of O’Hara and Henderson.

But both O’Hara and LaSalle (and the rest of the Philly Catholic League) lived in District 12. As a result, only one team could receive a bid to the state championship. Given the proven talent coming out of the PCL, how could this be possible? Well, the simple answer is that the state qualifying allocation system has its quirks. The allocation of state qualifying spots during reclassification was not based on merit, but rather on the number of schools within your district. So past success did not weigh into the conversation.

Regardless of the reasoning, LaSalle entered the 2012 XC season as long shot underdogs to make it to states. And things didn’t get any easier to start the season. Senior Tom Coyle, who had won both the PCL and the District 12 championships in 2011, was state champion in the 1600 during the spring of 2012. Yet an injury knocked Coyle out of the opening meet at Briarwood. Without their front-runner, LaSalle looked a little hapless in the championship section. Jack Magee led the team in 23^rd place and Brendan Bilotta was the #2 at 31^st. Andrew Stone, who was fresh off a fantastic track season that ended with a 1:52, looked a lot like a track guy as he finished in 55^th and ran #3. Overall, LaSalle finished 10^th out of 12 teams and was almost 200 points behind the meet champions from O’Hara.

A week later, LaSalle showed up to race the top teams in the state at the Foundation Invitational. Brendan Billotta finished as the team’s only top 60 finisher, running 17:26 for 24^th. That put them 10^th in the meet, well outside their preseason projection. Even putting Coyle in the race in first place, LaSalle would have been just 5^th at the foundation invite, again roughly 200 points behind O’Hara. Unfortunately for the Explorers, it was looking less and less like a tragedy that District 12 was only getting one spot on the line in Hershey.

But a lot can change in a month. LaSalle didn’t race another major invite the rest of the regular season. They trained. They got healthy. They regained focus. And they found a new reason to fight.

While District 12 was only allocated one team spot, they were also allowed 5 individual qualifiers. If you have 5 individual qualifiers running at the state championship meet, that is sufficient to score you as a team. Therefore, if LaSalle could somehow manage to grab all 5 of the individual qualifying spots (i.e. the top 5 non-O’Hara places), their 5 runners would qualify as a second team to states. A door was suddenly open, but the question was how wide?

All it would take be one really talented individual who slipped in the chute in front of LaSalle’s 5^th best guy and the dream was shot. They needed a perfect day from all 5 runners and they needed some good fortune from the rest of the talented PCL.

LaSalle got the chance to see just how realistic their goal would be at the PCL Championships on October 20^th. It was less than a week out from districts and featured essentially all the same teams on the same exact course. Plus the team would be racing their first major invite with their leader Tom Coyle.

Coyle came to play in his return to action, finishing in 4^th place overall behind only three O’Hara boys. As expected, O’Hara rolled to the team title with 6 of the top 7 spots. But for LaSalle, the real focus was on everyone else. Coyle, Andrew Stone and another returning healthy athlete in Matt Greco all defeated the non-O’Hara runners. However, Jack Magee (11^th) and Evan Quain (16^th) were not quite as impressive. Magee was beat out by 4 seconds against Archbishop Wood’s Jonathan Schmidt while Quain lost to Father Judge’s Eric Murray and two members of Bonner. Plus, there was other talent in the Philadelphia Public League that would be showing up for districts.

However, the move to three classifications proved to not be all bad. Philly Public Champion Matt Ferry of Science Leadership was in Class A. The Bonner boys, Will McDermott and Kevin Montgomery, as well as Jon Schmidt were all in Class AA along with Public runner-up Raheem Henry. So when all those guys were removed it meant LaSalle’s top from PCL were ahead of all non-O’Hara AAA athletes. All they needed to do was hold those spots and have Evan Quain make up 10 seconds on Father Judge’s Murray.

Then things took a turn. Matt Greco, the team’s #3 runner at the PCL Championships, suffered a collapsed lung which rendered him unable to compete at the District Championships. That meant Brendan Billotta, the team’s #6 man from PCLs would need to step up and fill his place. The good news was Billotta had been one of the team’s top runners back in September. He had more than enough potential to shake off that bad day and bounce back to be the hero at Districts.

With a mountain of pressure on each of their runners, the LaSalle boys got on the course. Coyle, who had been some 20 seconds off the lead at PCLs, went out aggressive and set the tone for his teammates. He ran with the front pack from O’Hara and trusted his heart to overcome any deficiencies in his lungs or legs. All 7 O’Hara boys were at the top of the standings as expected, but Billotta, Stone and Magee all ran in the next group, well ahead of the closest non-O’Hara opponent. That was 4. But things were less certain for #5. Father Judge’s Murray and St. Joe’s Prep’s Isaiah Fisher both had runners ahead of LaSalle about midway through the race.

As the race continued, the top pack whittled away until only Coyle and O’Hara’s Kevin James remained. Then, filtering in behind this pair was the rest of the O’Hara top 6. Then, for LaSalle, the real race began. Billotta first. Then Magee. Then Stone. There were gaps emerging, but the LaSalle top 4 was all where they needed to be. As the back hills of Belmont Plateau had unfolded, the top Father Judge runner had folded back into the pack, but now a second St. Joe’s Prep runner had risen to take his place. These two stood between Evan Quain and his mission to help send his team to states.

After plenty of nervous pacing from the LaSalle supporters, Tom Coyle was the first to come out of the trees and head for the finish line. The defending district champion was all smiles as he came through the final straightaway with his tongue hanging out. Coyle broke the tape just under 16 minutes, a full 20 seconds faster than a week earlier and defended his title. He was heading back to states, ready to go for another individual medal. But how many of his teammates would he be bringing with him?

As Coyle waited, he watched six straight O’Hara runners cross the finish line, from Kevin James at 16:04 through to Matt Hayes at 16:32. Only then did Brendan Billotta breakthrough for the second LaSalle position. With a massive bounce back performance, Billotta hit the tape just south of 16:40. It was a 47 second turnaround and filled the big hole left by Greco. Stone and Magee followed him a little over 10 seconds later. And thankfully they didn’t have to wait long for their #5.

With a huge close over the final piece of the race, Evan Quain outlasted Jadon Sargent and Isaiah Fisher for St. Joe’s Prep and crossed the line 12^th overall, behind 7 O’Hara boys and his 4 LaSalle teammates. Quain’s time of 17 minutes was nearly 12 seconds better than his time the prior week. Even if the PIAA hadn’t wanted to give it to them, the LaSalle boys fought through an up and down season and took it anyway. They were going to states.

As a group of just 5 runners, LaSalle headed out to states. Because they had qualified as 5 individuals, they would not be able to make any substitutions to the line-up (meaning that Greco couldn’t have come back, even if he was healthy enough) and they would also not be able to add a 6^th or 7^th runner to the line-up for insurance purposes. The same 5 guys that heroically extended their season an additional week would need to find a way to duplicate that performance and stay perfect.   

Despite the fact that they had no margin for error, LaSalle went out hard through the first mile of the race. They were in 4^th place in the team standings, ahead of a strong crop of D1 teams as well as WPIAL power North Allegheny. Coyle was mixing it up in the lead pack while Stone and Magee were out under 5 minutes as well. Bilotta was out as the team’s #5 runner at 5:08.

A mile later, LaSalle was still holding it together strong in 5^th place. They had 180 points, keeping them well clear of the madness that was ensuing for spots 6 through 10. North Allegheny and CR North each had an edge over them, but LaSalle kept them in sight. Coyle, who at the midseason checkpoint wasn’t even racing, was leading the team scoring in 7^th place overall. His teammates were all at 11 flat or under through 2 miles and Andrew Stone was hovering in 30^th place, within spitting distance of a medal.

LaSalle approached the finish, still battling hard to the end. Coyle managed to hang on to his hot start and place 11^th overall and 6^th in team scoring. Then Andrew Stone, in perhaps the surprise of the day, unleashed that 1:52 800 speed and blasted to the finish in 23^rd place. That locked up an individual state medal for Stone and put him just 1 spot behind district runner-up Kevin James. Stone had run 18:32 at the Foundation Invite in Hershey at the end of September. He had now finished the season with a 16:28. That’s over a 2 minute improvement! It was also a massive drop from his District 12 time at Belmont (16:51) and even his PCL mark (16:43). In fact, it was Stone’s fastest invitational 5k ever.

Jack Magee came through in 36^th in the team scoring, cracking the top 70 individuals with his 17 flat mark. Although it wasn’t quite as big as Stone’s drop, Magee still cut over a minute from his Foundation time. Evan Quain, the key domino at Districts, crossed just 11 seconds later with a terrific 45^th place finish in team scoring. That was ahead of the 4^th runner from CR North and the 5^th from North Allegheny.

Bilotta didn’t have quite as big of a day as he was maybe hoping after districts, but LaSalle’s #5 runner survived tough conditions at the start and, when the team absolutely needed him to get to the line as their only remaining runner, he sprinted down the home stretch and rounded out the line-up with a 17:49. The lone junior on LaSalle’s qualifying team finished 84^th in the team standings which put LaSalle at 5^th in the team tally with 185 points. The team that wasn’t even supposed to make it here, was now #5 in the state in what was considered one of the best years in recent history. With just 5 guys available, LaSalle was only 45 points away from the #3 spot, which would have matched their preseason ranking.

Everything seemed to be thrown in this team’s path, but nothing could stop LaSalle from Hershey.