Mercury Area Preview Capsules
BOYERTOWN
Head coach: Steve Fegely, 7th year
Last year’s record: 5-4 overall
Runners to watch: Seniors Dylan Eddinger, Lance Kokonos and Dylan Weiser. Juniors Bryton Henry and Owen Moore. Sophomore Alex Longacre. Freshmen Dominic Derafolo and Josh Endy.
Outlook: Led by Dylan Eddinger,who only took up running last season but quickly grew into a top contender, finishing third at PAC-10 Championships. Did lose several seniors in Elijah Mercado, John Bennett, Dalton Meredith, Chris Miller and Parker Vivian. “Last season was about gaining experience for our youth, and everything came together for the team at the right time, as the boys went from fifth in the league to third at the PAC-10 Championships,’ Fegely said. “Having graduated our 2-3-4 runners, new blood is ready to make their mark on the team. Dylan Eddinger learned many lessons in his first season and looks to prove that third in the league in 2013 was the first test passed. Henry, Moore, and Longacre have put in a lot of hard work over the summer, and along with the experience of Kokonos and Weiser, and newcomers Derafolo and Endy, the team has goals well above last season’s 5-4 record.’
DANIEL BOONE
Head coach: Russell Keith, 3rd year (11 years previously at Tulpehocken)
Last year’s record: 10-5 overall
Key runners: Seniors Robby Miller, Austin Mora and Logan Garcia. Juniors Clay Brenner and Aaron Higgins. Sophomores Ethan Shane, Diego Santos, and Sean Hannon. Freshmen Josh Heffner, Zach Murray, Jan Vasquez, Liam Summers and Adam Davis.
Outlook: Lost Stevie Sievers and number of other good seniors and return only three of their top seven. Blazers will be bolstered by some talented young runners. “Once again a young, inexperienced team,’ Keith said. “We will have strong upperclassmen leadership and young talent. We should have a strong pack, but the key to success this season will be the development of our top runners.’
HILL SCHOOL
Head coach: Chris DeLucia, 7th year
Last year’s record: 1-2, third in MAPL, seventh in PAISSA
Key runners: Seniors Nick Pearson (co-captain) Preston Tietjen (co-captain), Berenger Wegman and Chalie Preletz. Juniors Khayre Ali, Sean Allen and Max Shomber. Sophomores Xavier Friel and Max Crispin. Outlook: Lost several standout seniors, including front man Luke Anderson, but still have an excellent core back. MAPL (Mid-Atlantic Prep League) does not have a season dual meet schedule with the Hill boys and girls season an invitationals-based schedule, but Hill runners always up to challenge at MAPL Championships. “We return most of our varsity team, and look to be much stronger this year,’ DeLucia said. “Summer training will make the difference, and we have several runners at the cusp of making major improvements and contributions. We hope to improve on all of our records this year.’
METHACTON
Head coach: Steve Savitz, 11th year
Last year’s record: 8-1 overall, PAC-10 champion
Key runners: Seniors Jacob Brycki, Tom Fizzano, Justin Hilker, Jared Kline and Derek Li. Juniors Evan Cost, Sidarth Giddu, Basel Karim, Jeff Kirshenbaum and Dan McClay. Sophomores Ryan Beil, Josh Brycki, Joey Bruno, Matt Connolly, Vaihav Gupta, Noah Holihan, Ryan Hunt, Alec Lanter, Owen Leber, Zach Lloyd, Connor Peters, James Ruppert, Andrew McMonigle, Tyler Shrader and Matt Wiedmeyer. Freshmen Michael Clark, William Lozinak, Peter Luba and Evan Vattimo.
Outlook: Went into championship meet in three-way tie (8-1) with Pottsgrove and Spring-Ford last season, but Warriors won the championship and their first PAC-10 title. Suffered two key losses in Pat Hopkins and Tom Duffy, but Jeff Kirshenbaum came on as a standout sophomore last season, finishing second at PAC-10 Championships behind Spring-Ford’s Paul Power. “I expect great things this season,’ Savitz said. “Last year we won the PAC-10 Championship with a great team and a great attitude. That combination is here once again. Duffy and Hopkins will be replaced by Kirshenbaum and Kline. It will be hard to break this duo up during the year. They are followed by our speedy sophomores Gupta and Connolly, along with senior Tom Fizzano sharing his experience. Karim is a new addition who will be turning some heads. Our seniors will be missed but our thirst to compete again this year at the same level remains strong.’
OWEN J. ROBERTS
Head coach: Dave Michael, 37th year
Last year’s record: 4-5 overall
Key runners: Senior Kevin Lutz. Juniors Ethan Conway and Will Hillegas. Sophomores Connor Murray. Also Jamie Fogwell, Brandon Calle and Abe VanHelmond. Newcomers Liam Conway and Andrew Griffin.
Outlook: Lost several excellent seniors, but, as always, deep in numbers with some promising young runners. “We have 29 boys who are working hard to get us to the Final Four,’ Michael said. “We are young but have a lot of desire to have a successful season.’
PERKIOMEN SCHOOL
Head coach: Paige Longstreth, 4th year
Last year’s record: No losses, won Tri-County League (Co-ed team).
Key runners: Juniors Henry Yan, Ethan Feldman and Sasha Vorlicky.
Outlook: Run as a co-ed team, but have no girls out so far for this season. However, workouts start later at private schools and that may change when season begins. And do have enough boys for a full team. With the program resurrected only three years ago and very light in numbers last season, Panthers still went undefeated and finished first in Tri-County League.
PERKIOMEN VALLEY
Head coach: Ryan Sullivan, 14th year
Last year’s record: 6-3 overall
Key runners: Seniors Solomon Barth and Raymond Friend. Juniors Jeff Montgomery, Matt Town, Tommy Armstrong and Frankie MacGregor.
Outlook: Lost their top runner in Dave Garton, Vikings most consistent over past three years. But do return five of their top six runners, led by Jeff Montgomery. “We are still very young and will depend on underclassmen to lead the way and take big steps forward with leadership and improvement of times,’ Sullivan said. “We look to qualify for Final Four and contend for the PAC-10 title.’
PHOENIXVILLE
Head coach: Justin Winters, 3rd year
Last year’s record: 1-8 overall
Key runners: Seniors Nick Kissel, Kevin Colbert and Matt Steplewski. Juniors Sean McGinnis. Dylan Smiley, Mike Shaw and Liam Darcy. Freshman Christian Schaff.
Outlook: Winters, who coached only Phantoms boys last year, is now also in charge of girls. Since Winters is also the Phantoms head track coach, he knows both the boys and girls runners well. Boys lost a lot of seniors, but have excellent group returning and look to be primed for improvement and a better record this season. “Despite graduating 12 seniors last year, we return a great deal of talent at the top and are fortunate to have some very talented newcomers that should give us strong depth,’ Winters said. “The boys have been working very hard this summer and believe that this is a year that they will break out in a big way. As always, our goal is to perform big at big meets, namely at the district championships where we hope to peak and hopefully put out our best performance in recent years.’
POPE JOHN PAUL II
Head coach: Matt Kavanagh, 1st year
Last year’s record: 3-6 overall
Key runners: Seniors Chris Triannosky, Patrick Souder and Tyler Way. Juniors John Conner, Nick Kropp , Connor Solis and Ryan Nicholas.
Outlook: Matt Kavanagh takes over after the departure of Doug Symonds, the coach for the last three years. Kavanagh ran cross country at Kennedy-Kenrick High School and track at La Salle University. Team suffered no major losses, but is still in process of getting PJP program up to full speed. Numbers are deeper on boys side this year. “As first-year coach I see a lot of potential, with some veteran runners as well as a big freshman class of runners to work with,’ Kavanagh said. “This should be an exciting team to work with.’
POTTSGROVE
Head coach: Larry Rechtin, 22nd year, asst. coach Marilyn Eaton, 7th year.
Last year’s record: 8-1 PAC-10, PAC-10 runner-up, District 1-AA champions, PIAA-AA Championships runner-up.
Key runners: Seniors Derek Lopez Austin Eaton and Sean O’Brien. Juniors Ky’lif Underwood, Brendan Wurtz. Matt Harp, Joey Drager and Ryan Levengood. Sophomores Mikey Prior, Michael Neeson, Garion Coddington, Zachary Reiker and Kyle O’Neal. Freshman Cole Goldcamp.
Outlook: Finished regular season in three-way tied with Methacton and Spring-Ford. Methacton won PAC-10 championships, snapping Falcons streak of two straight titles. But stormed back to win second straight District 1-AA title and finished runner-up at PIAA-AA. Lost some more of the runners who played key roles in building the Falcons into a PAC-10 power, including Josh Toth, Evan Cook and JC Garges, Falcons return Derek Lopez, consistently their top runner and a AA state medalist last year, along with a slew of excellent young runners. “We graduated two of the top three, and three of the top five from the 2013 state runner-ups,’ Rechtin said. “(Toth, Cook, Garges) are huge losses, but we are young and the guys who were supporting runners last year will need to step up. They have been committed so far, but the league is really tough this year. Lopez is looking like our team leader, and it will be a matter of how close we can keep the next pack to him. Eaton has worked very hard; and Harp, Wurtz, and Underwood are ready to raise their games. From there we have 4-7 guys fighting it out for the varsity slots. We are cautiously optimistic and hope to get through the dual meets healthy, be in the top four come PAC-10s, and from there make a strong postseason run.’
POTTSTOWN
Head coach: Mary Ann Hill and Mark Agnew, 4th year
Last year’s record: 0-9 overall
Key runners: Senior James Wood. Juniors Justin Beasley-Turner, Nick Parson, Matt Wood, Paul Sabold, Donte Smith and Brandon Wilson.
Outlook: Lost a number of seniors, but still have their standout Justin Beasley-Turner, who emerged as their leader in 2013. Not surprising since Beasley-Turner is younger brother of former Trojans football and track standout and NFL player Aaron Beasley. Hill is also the Trojan boys longtime track and field coach. “The boys should be extremely competitive this year with most of them are beginning their third season,’ Hill said. “I think Pottsgrove will continue their winning ways with Perkiomen Valley. I think Pottstown will be surprising many this season — both boys and girls.’
SPRING-FORD
Head coach: Brian Sullivan, 4th year (27th year overall, previously longtime St. Pius X coach)
Last year’s record: 8-1 overall
Key runners: Seniors Paul Power, Raghav Jain, Matt Davis, Will Burkett and Jordon Reed. Junior Josh Miller. Sophomores Chase Parr, Jack Roshelli, Kyle Reed, Pat Power, Will Nguyen and Tino Magazzolo. Freshmen Shane Ainscoe and Zach Smith.
Outlook: Rams are led by defending PAC-10 champion Paul Power. Also have core of last year’s team back, losing only key runners Josh Tupper and Matt Heininger, while adding a number of good new runners. “Both our teams have increased numbers out for the year and have had their core groups working hard throughout the entire summer,’ Sullivan said. “Both teams should be able to benefit from the increased depth that the numbers have given us. Boys will once again be led by Paul Power, the PAC-10 champ and a district and state medalist, with a solid core behind him. Losing Josh Tupper and Matt Heininger will hurt, but we should be able to fill those losses with Parr, Davis and Jain.’
UPPER PERKIOMEN
Head coach: Todd Niemann, 12th year
Last year’s record: 2-7 overall
Key runners: Seniors Jake Keiper, Jack Donahue, Ryan Dockery and Vaughn Sefing. Sophomores Landon Detweiler, Sam Daub, Luke McGrotty, Jacob Dockery and Nick Tedesco. Freshmen Cameron Junk, Anthony Capreri, Evan Hanney, Hunter Douglass and Chris Rynn.
Outlook: Suffered no significant losses and got deeper in numbers this year. Led by Jake Keiper, who has been one of Indians front runners since his freshman year. “We are returning nearly the entire varsity team from last year and added some quality freshmen and first-time runners,’ Niemann said. “We hope to improve on last year by winning a few more meets and being more competitive at the championship meet. If we continue to improve we may sneak up on some teams and make some noise in the league and district.’
Compiled by Rosemarie Ross
