The PTFCA Indoor State Championships will be broadcast LIVE this Sunday starting at 10am on PennTrackXC.com! You can watch the meet at the following link:
PTFCA Indoor State Championship Live Webcast!
A year ago, Shaler Area's Brianna Schwartz provided THE moment of the PTFCA Indoor Championships.
The reigning girls' mile champion indoors and out will not have the opportunity to claim another state indoor title, having withdrawn from Sunday's meet at Penn State as a result of leg pain that developed late last week.
“This past Tuesday was her final hard workout prior to the TSTCA," Shaler Area distance coach Sam Bair said. “The workout went well, but the following few days she had some pain on the outside of her left lower leg just above her ankle bone. She never says anything about pain but was emphatic about this one.
“We weren't planning any racing beyond the state meet anyway because of this weather, and we were tired of doing reps on the roads at North Park. Looks like the reps caught up to her. She will hit the treadmill (Monday). If there's no improvement, then she will take the next step and get some tests done."
Schwartz and her Titan teammates were among those who did not travel to Edinboro University for the Tri-State Coaches (TSTCA) championship last Saturday because of the wintry mess that hit western Pennsylvania that morning. The meet would have been only her second of 2015 after winning all three distance races at Youngstown State in times worthy of the national top 10.
“We had planned on racing her at Youngstown on January 24, (and she) developed some tightness on the outside of her right thigh, so we figured IT band," Bair said. “We took it easy for a week, then prepared for another Youngstown meet February 8. That went well, and we felt that she would be ready for the TSTCA and state meet."
Schwartz claimed her first indoor state title crawling on her hands and knees, having fallen in the final 10 meters of a record-breaking mile run. Her time of 4:42.58 finished the season as US#2.
The 2014 state indoor meet was the crowning moment of a brief but exciting indoor season for Schwartz. In a span of 15 days, the Colorado signee ran a pair of state records in the 1,600/mile from a total of five races that all were in the top 10 nationally.