Team Breakdown: PIAA District 6 Boys

D6-AAA Boys - Team Breakdown

State College Area has won six straight District 6 Class AAA team titles (and, along with it, the lone state qualifying spot). This year, however, SC might see it's toughest test within the district in a long while. Mifflin County should match up pretty well with the Little Lions, and this will be a very interesting battle for the lone state spot in D6-AAA.

State College returns three boys from varsity last year. Gone is D6-AAA champ and state medalist Mitchell Etter, but back is Owen Isham, who placed second at districts and 38th at states. He'll be one of the individual favorites in the district this fall. SC will look to Joe Messner and Henry Ballard to fill the void left by some of those graduated seniors. It also has Bennett Norton, who ran well at the beginning of last season as just a freshman.

Mifflin returns its top four from last year's team. Up front, expect Chayce Mackanir to lead the way for this team. He was 18th at states. Brayden Harris was an impact freshman that took fourth at districts and won the frosh/soph race at Foot Locker Northeast. Along with Chase Sheaffer and Seth Phillips, Mifflin has a formidable squad that could take down State College. The key for Mifflin is finding a solid fifth runner to close the gap to the frontrunners.

This should be one of the state's most interesting team district battles with only one spot in states up for grabs. There's also the scenario where the second place team in the district could earn the five individual state spots, and, thus, have a scoring team at the state meet. But Central Mountain and Altoona Area may have some runners that could spoil that.

Altoona, third at districts last year, returns five boys -- all rising juniors -- that will look to pack up and move up in the field. Central Mountain, led by Corbin Green, will aim to improve upon its fourth place finish last year.