Was The Best AA Team of the Decade ... in AAA?

For the younger readers out there, the PIAA Cross Country State Meet didn’t always have three classifications. The two classification system officially ended in 2012 and teams that had spent the prior years admirably fighting against the superpowers now found themselves near the top of the heap. One of those schools was Tunkhannock, a power within District 2 even during their AAA days who, shortly after the move down in classification, became the 2013 State Champions. But as great as that team was, you can make the case that their squad from three years earlier was in fact the best the school has seen.

The 2010 XC season was the final one for Tunkhannock’s Reece Ayers. To that point, Reece had already put his name on a very short list of PA’s all-time best. As only a sophomore, Ayers ran to 8^th in the state championship meet and 13^th in the Nike Northeast Regional meet. A year later, Reece clinched his first district championship before adding another top 10 state finish and top 15 regional finish.

With Ayers at the helm, Tunkhannock won the District 2 Team Title in 2009, earning the region’s only state qualifying spot by 14 points over Dallas. As was the case most years, the District 2 champion entered the meet as an afterthought behind the bigger districts and, ultimately, they left the 2009 meet ass something of an afterthought as well. Tunkhannock scored 413 points and finished in 16^th.

So when the discussions began about who would be the top team in the state in 2010, you would need to go quite far down a forum before you even caught a whiff of District 2. But Tunkhannock returned the key contributors from their 2009 core. Returning to the fold were David Novak, Jake Siegel and Ben Robinson, a trio of runners that spent the summer focused on narrowing the gap to their fearlessly leader. If they could find a 5^th piece, they imagined they could be a dangerous sleeper candidate.

At the team’s opening race of the season, Penn State’s Harry Grove Invitational, Ayers did what we had all come to expect: he won the race by 25 seconds with a monster time of 15:38 (the fastest time since New Jersey legend Craig Forys dropped 15:21 in 2006). Ben Robinson was the key member of the pack on race day. He ran a massive PR to grab 5^th place overall in 16:26. Unfortunately, the list of highlights stopped their for Tunkhannock as they ended up with no other top 35 finishers and had to settle for 5^th in the overall standings.

There wasn’t much time to pout about it as two weeks later Tunkhannock toed the line at the most competitive invitational that year in Carlisle. The Rebook Challenge race featured 3 of the top 4 teams from the prior year’s state meet in North Allegheny, Altoona and LaSalle. In this competitive field, Ayers was only able to leave the race with a 12^th place finish in a disappointing 16:20. That meant there was an extra bit of pressure on the rising stars. Ben Robinson again came through as the team’s #2 runner, taking 35^th in 17:05 and this time he dragged someone with him. David Novak bounced back from a disappointing race at Spiked Shoe and delivered a 17:19 for 46^th.  

A top three was starting to rise to form, but Tunkhannock didn’t quite have the pack to piece together a truly competitive position. Although they managed a 9^th place finish in a loaded invitational, they scored 312 points-some 200 back of the invite champs from North Allegheny.

Next on the schedule was a muddy day at Paul Short. Redemption was on the mind for two of Tunkhannock’s top harriers. For Reece Ayers, a 12^th place finish at Carlisle was not up to his elite standards. So on race day, he got out aggressive and threw down his most furious kick in order to outsprint Quinn Devlin for the gold medal. But the meet also served as a breakthrough for Jake Siegel. The junior had been a distant #5 man for this team at Carlisle, but he posted a big improvement at Lehigh with a 66^th place finish and 17:10 clocking.

Although there were highlights, Tunkhannock ultimately posted just a 13^th place finish in this major invitational. They scored 394 points and had two scorers finish outside the top 100. There were three District One teams ahead of them, all of which were question marks to even make it to the state championships. If Tunkhannock wanted to be competitive on the big stage, there was clearly still work to be done.

The good news was they had found their 5^th piece. Tom Damiani, a junior racing varsity XC for the first time, held his own as the team’s #3 and #4 in each of the opening meets of the season. He wasn’t necessarily running jaw-dropping times, but he was consistent and competitive. And that was the attitude they needed to bottle headed into championship season.

The championship season started with a trip to Misericordia for the Ed Narkiewicz All-League Meet. It was on this stage that the line-up took a clear step forward. Not only did Tunkhannock pick up their first win of the season, but they had just a 20 second spread between Ayers and #4 runner Jake Siegel. David Novak had his best race of the season, taking 3^rd overall. In the end, Tunkhannock eased past Dallas by 9 points, setting themselves up for a rematch a week later for the lone state qualifying spot.

At the district meet, Tunkhannock doubled down on their success. After a breakthrough performance a week earlier, the squad’s top 4 somehow found a way to level up once again. This time it was Jake Siegel’s turn for a best run of the season. He finished 3^rd in the district as the team also took 1^st (Ayers), 7^th (Novak) and 8^th (Robinson).

Ironically, it was Damiani, their most consistent piece to date, who had a rough day at the championships. He finished back in 24^th overall and failed to crack 18 minutes for the first time all season. As a result, Tunhannock had to sweat things out for a moment after the race’s conclusion. Dallas had not matched Tunkhannock’s front running, but they had packed up with a meet best 30 second spread. Ultimately, when the final points were tallied, Tunkhannock had earned a trip to states, but their 13 point margin of victory was not quite an emphatic message to the rest of the state.

Regardless of the margin, Tunkhannock had punched their ticket to Hershey. Now it was time to reset and see what they could do. Naturally, Tunkhannock entered the meet as an afterthought once again. District One was sending a terrific set of teams yet again including the defending champions from West Chester Henderson and 2007-2008 champs North Penn. Meanwhile, District 7 countered with North Allegheny and Baldwin, two teams that had traded punches in a loaded WPIAL. The PCL had not just one, but two competitive teams in O’Hara and LaSalle. There wasn’t much room for District 2.

Over the course of the first mile, Tunkhannock realized just how crowded this race would be. The opening 1600 had its usual fast start and Tunkhannock’s pack ended up somewhat buried in the masses. While Reece Ayers had, of course, positioned himself excellently, the next closest piece was Novak in just 179^th. A quick scan of the first standings would show Tunkhannock was 19^th out of 24 teams after the first five minutes. However, Jake Siegel had not registered going through the mat.

When Siegel next popped up at mile 2, Tunkhannock fans realized just how much of a difference his score would make. Siegel came through the two mile in 54^th place overall at 10:32. That was good for 28^th place in the team standings. Meanwhile, his teammates had stepped up behind him. Novak, Damiani and Robinson had all made big moves through the field. Their score had dropped enough to put them in 10^th place overall.

But Tunkhannock wasn’t finished. Over the final mile, the boys came off the hills and continued to race aggressively. Novak in particular closed like a fiend, moving up 14 spots in the team standings and 32 spots overall. Tom Damiani, the team’s weak link at districts, had gone out aggressively from the start, pushing right alongside Ben Robinson and the pair ultimately dragged each other forward another 10 team spots on their way to the finish. With Siegel and Ayers each holding form in the top 50 overall, Tunkhannock got through the final shoot with just 208 points.

How did that stack up? 208 points was good enough to land Tunkhannock in 6^th place overall, just 1 point away from Altoona for a spot in the top 5 and only 7 points back of Baldwin for 4^th. It was a truly dramatic transformation from the two major invitationals earlier in the spring, not to mention the fact that they had cut their prior year’s state score in half.

Check out this swing from Carlisle to States:

Carlisle

North Allegheny – 114 (+198)

Altoona – 161 (+151)

Cumberland Valley – 226 (+86)

LaSalle – 237 (+75)

Chambersburg – 240 (+72)

Mount Lebanon – 263 (+49)

Grove City – 311 (+1)

Tunkhannock – 312

States

North Allegheny – 124 (+78; -120)

Altoona – 207 (+1; -150)

Tunkhannock – 208

Mount Lebanon – 212 (-4; -53)

LaSalle – 233 (-25; -100)

Grove City – 324 (-116; -117)

Cumberland Valley – 337 (-129; -215)

Chambersburg – 379 (-171; -243)

They were a small school, a school in a place that no one would think to look for a state title contender. District 2’s champion had been 16^th, 19^th, 18^th, and 19^th the previous four seasons (and 12^th, 18^th, 17^th and 19^th the next four)

And yet when the pressure was on and the lights were brightest, Tunkhannock ran big. They took on the challenge of the AAA mantle and battled their way to 6^th in the state. 208 points. 17:08 Average. So where do they stack up on the all-time small school lists?

Maybe it’s a trick question.