Covered the annual Baldwin Track & Field Invitational Friday and came away wondering what happened to all the local participants?
Peters Township was there. A few competitors from Waynesburg and Ringgold were there. Didn't bump into anyone from Chartiers-Houston after I arrived but was told they brought a few athletes as well.
Where's everyone else?
The answer is either at home or at the Pine-Richland Invitational.
Several teams, including Canon-McMillan, Washington and Trinity, headed to the growing P-R Invitational, which hosted 38 teams this year. That's not the size of Baldwin, one of the largest high school invitationals in the eastern United State, but enough to compete against a strong field.
Still, it can't be as strong as the field at Baldwin or provide as broad a scope in what to expect at the PIAA Championships.
And, size probably has a lot to do with the decreasing number of local participants at Baldwin.
The Baldwin Invitational is too large for some, and the massive field usually means the meet ends no earlier than 10:40 p.m. Sometimes, it can carry past 11 p.m. That's a long day.
Those are the negatives. The advantages outweight them. And the main advantage I see is competing against quality competition. That's the best way to improve.
7 comments:
Mike,
You are right about the meets.
In CM's case, coming off the playoff meet vs. Butler 2 days earlier and having faced most of the toughest Competition in the WPIAL already this season,(Our section meet had 7 of the top 10 milers in the WPIAL in it) we didn't need Baldwin to guage our progress this year, while the P-R meet gave our younger athletes another chance to prepare for qualifiers next week.
Pine-Richland puts on a great meet!
Baldwin does too, but it has become
almost too big.
that is true but it would have been interesting to see how ur distance kids stacked up in a big invite like that one
With the new format AA and AAA WPIAL's being a likely 10 hour event 2 weeks after, many teams likely didn't feel like 2 super-long days at the same venue within 2 weeks of each other... and P-R does run a very good meet with good competition and half as many schools.
Just to give you an idea of the size of Baldwin. There were 76 male pole vaulters. Warmups started at 12:30pm and the last jumper was done competing at 7:30pm. Too large is an understatement. Maybe Baldwin should consider starting at 10am instead of 2pm.
I would have to think that the Baldwin meet will continue to frustrate participants and we will see thier overall numbers decline and go to places like P-R in the coming years.
It is great to have tons of talent at one venue, but when that talent has to sit around for 10 hours until they can compete is ridiculous.
Char Houston was at the South Fayette Invitational on Saturday.
Talk about two ends of the spectrum... at South Fayette's AA Invite on Saturday there weren't even enough entries in the 4X8 relays for 8 places and ribbons, I think the girls race had 6 teams. There WERE 15-20 teams there though... And their coach pretty much would not let anyone warm up on their million dollar field, even if their event was next up. It was ridiculous.
Post a Comment