What Numbers Can Tell Us

2013 MSHSL Champs 3200. Photo by Jim Ferstle

It's been almost a year, but fans of Minnesota High School track and field are still talking about it.  It was the boy's Class AA 3200 at last June's MSHSL State Championships at Hamline.  What made it so special was not only the quality, but the depth. While much has and will continue to be written about the race, the yearly stats complied by Bill and Tim Miles tells part of the story.

If you go to the end of the listing and look at the breakdown of freshman, sophomore, and junior bests the narrative for the tale begins.  Included in that list are Eli Krahn, Joey Duerr, Connor Olson, Wayde Hall and Joe Klecker. All but Klecker were in the race, Krahn setting his PR and topping the freshman list with his runner-up finish in the 2013 race.

The sophomore stats include Duerr, who tops the list with his 2013 race is followed by Olson, Klecker, and 2013 MSHSL champion, Obsa Ali.  Finally, the junior bests include Ali, Zack Benning, and Jacob McDermott, who each set their marks in the 2013 State Meet. Go to the top for the 2013 top ten and the rest of the State contestants appear: Eric Colvin and Will Burke.

What the numbers illustrate was the potential for what happened last June was obvious before the race.  Seven of the nine finalists for last year's State Meet were or would be in the top tens of their respective age groups.  The miserable weather last Spring and Summer meant they weren't overraced and, like many Minnesotans are right now, had a serious case of "cabin fever."  Each was ready to race and race hard.

If they weren't Colvin forced them to by taking out the pace at 65 seconds for the first quarter and 4:28 at the mile.  As the photo above, taken right before the mile and a half mark in the race, shows the Stillwater trio of Colvin(black socks), Hall(orange shoes), and Krahn(in third, just behind Hall and in front of Ali) trained with each other every day.  There were no secrets.  They knew what each could do. Ali was under instructions from his coach, Marty Huberty, to sit on the leaders and wait until the last 200 to make his move.   Duerr was hoping that the kick that won him the Hamline Elite Meet 3200 title on the same track earlier in the year would allow him to repeat the feat.

Olson knew he wasn't as fast a kicker as the rest, so he'd have to go earlier in the race, get a lead that he could hold.  The weather was perfect for racing fast, and each of the runners was all in to take advantage of the opportunity.  The numbers before and after the race tell the story.  The only negative, if you want to call it that, to come out of the result, is that it will be harder to qualify for the State Meet this year out of Regions with more depth.  The qualifying mark for making State based on time, which was already a significant achievement, especially if the Region Meet was held on a windy day or had another sort of weather related impediment.

Add to that the possibility of injuries and it brings into focus why last year's race was so special.  Could it happen again?  Sure, but the odds are not in favor of a repeat. But then the odds wouldn't have been too good for the winter weather we all suffered through either.  The numbers are aligned in favor of another classic, but racing is more than a numbers game.