Girls Mile Preview
Mount Lebanon's Logan St. John Kletter broke through in a big way during the fall on the XC trails, culminating with her placing second to Mia Cochran at the PIAA State Championships in AAA. Now St. John Kletter, on the heels of her big XC season, will look to win her first career state title on Sunday.
Cochran has opted to run just the 3K fresh later in the meet, which leaves the door open in the mile. St. John Kletter, just a sophomore, will look to seize the opportunity. She's run 4:50.05 for 1,600 meters this winter and enters as the top seed. She'll be a tough one to beat, but there is a talented field of challengers.
Interestingly, only one other girl in the field has run sub-5 this season, and it's Penn Charter's Alli DeLisi. The freshman has displayed some terrific versatility this season, but she's -- first and foremost -- going after the mile on Sunday. DeLisi ran 4:58.14 for a full mile at the Armory back in early January. She hasn't raced the event since then, so we could see a significant time drop for the ninth grader, as she chases what would be her first state crown, too.
After that, it's a pretty wide open field with a number of girls right on the cusp of sub-5 in the event. Downingtown West's Carolyn Tarpley went 5:00 for 1,600 meters at Ocean Breeze last week, and is running well at the right time to compete for a high finish. Mount Lebanon's Caroline Adams went 5:02 for 1,600 at SPIRE in the same race as her teammate St. John Kletter. She's in a good spot, too, and it will help to have a friendly face up with her near the front.
Claire Zubey of Owen J. Roberts went 5:03 for 1,600m on a flat track this winter. The third place finisher from the state meet in XC has some good experience (and went sub-5 for 1,600m outdoors last spring) and she'll certainly be a factor in this race. Hatboro Horsham's Emily Simko, Germantown Friends' Anna MacDonald, and Shaler Area's Sam Hennen, and Wilson's Caryn Rippey (ran a 4:58 1,600m last spring) are among the other girls to watch for in this field.
The top seeds have a little separation on the rest of the field, but expect the race for the rest of the medals to be very close. Pace will become a factor and we could end up seeing some girls from the first heat challenge for the podium.
ENTRIES:
Event 7 Girls 1 Mile Run
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Meet Record: 4:42.58 3/1/2014 Brianna Schwartz, Shaler Area
Name Year School
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1 Adams, Caroline 10 Mount Lebano
2 Breuninger, Milana 11 J.P. McCaskey
3 Cubbison, Kylee 12 Mifflin County
4 Deitrick, Katelyn 12 Bish McDevitt
5 DeLisi, Alli 9 Penn Charter
6 Hartel, Ella 10 Warwick
7 Hennen, Sam 12 Shaler Area
8 Iagnemma, Lauren 12 South Fayette
9 Kiser, Camryn 11 Chambersburg
10 Kletz, Harley 11 Montour
11 Macdonald, Anna 12 Germantown Frien
12 McLean, Natalie 11 Pine-Richlan
13 Myers, Willow 11 Mercer Area
14 Rippey, Caryn 12 Wilson (3)
15 Shock, Sydney 10 Peters Towns
16 Simko, Emily 11 Hatboro Hors
17 St. John Kletter, Logan 10 Mount Lebano
18 Tarpley, Carolyn 11 Dtown West
19 Trainer, Therese 11 Acad Notre Dame
20 Zubey, Claire 11 Owen J. Roberts