As we approach the 2009 Massachusetts All-State meet, I find myself coming back to a single question -- is Chris Allen really that good?
Allen, a freshman from King Philip Regional H.S. in Wrentham (I had to look it up), is seeded sixth in the two-mile with a time of 9:29.85. A couple of weeks ago, he won the Hockomock League Championships in what was then a King Philip school record 9:40.07. In the EMass Div II championships, he improved that record and his personal best to 9:29.85, finishing fourth just a second behind Arlington's Antony Taylor.
Has any freshman in Massachusetts ever run faster?
Outdoor state-record holder Chris Barnicle ran 9:39 as a freshman. But 9:29? That's not far from being one of the top 100 performances all-time in Massachusetts.
Interestingly, the state boys two-mile is dominated by underclassmen. Eight of the top nine seeds are underclassmen, led by Nashoba junior Coby Horowitz at 9:21:
1 Alex Kramer SR No. Andover 9:17.50
2 Coby Horowitz JR Nashoba 9:21.42
3 Patrick McGowan JR Mansfield 9:26.45
4 John Murray SO Shrewsbury 9:27.99
5 Antony Taylor JR Arlington 9:28.64
6 Chris Allen FR King Philip 9:29.85
7 John Bleday JR Xaverian 9:30.83
8 Brendon Aylaian JR Nashoba 9:30.87
9 Jared Reddy JR Methuen 9:32.80
10 Jonathon Gault SR Bedford High Sch 9:33.23
And, somewhat unusually, the Div I winner (Bleday) is only seeded 7th.
Anyway, I can't wait to see Allen run, and wonder about how much faster he'll go in the next three years.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I'm sure someone has unofficial freshman records somewhere . . . (Larry Newman perhaps ?) . . . the wild card would be some of the older runners (Dulong, Norris) that were trained very very hard a la Jim Ryun in high school, and may have run spectacular times quite early on in their careers.
9:29 as a freshman is certainly pretty studly.
What's the best two mile time by a freshman ever? What's the record that Barnicle had?
Post a Comment