Photo Credit: Justin Marvel  @justin.marvel on Insta
For the first time in nearly fifty years, the Severna Park Boys team won the 4A Indoor State Championship. A familiar opponent in Dulaney made the Falcons sweat and fight for every point all the way through the 4×400. Severna Park was certainly a top team coming into the state meet, but for every team, the lack of racing coupled with the apprehension of racing in the armory created uncertainty for everyone.
In the first scoring event, the 4×8, the Falcons got off to the right start as they took the win. To follow that up, Jack DeBaugh finished fifth in the highly contested 300. While any event could have changed the course of the meet, the 1600 saw a battle of titans. Tyler Canaday and Liam Hagerty of Severna Park ultimately took third and sixth while Tyler Dailey of Dulaney was fourth. However, if things went the way of the Lions this could have tipped the balance of the meet.
To solidify that mile effort, Jack DeBaugh of Sev Park stepped up to the plate and took the gold in the 500. Though Severna Park seemed to be pulling away, the beast in the east, Gavin Shaffer of Dulaney, ran a spectacular 55 hurdles to pull in ten points for Dulaney. Then he grabbed ten more in high jump as he jumped through the roof.
Dulaney won the 800 and 4×400 to pick up twenty points to close out the meet, but prior to that, the Falcon’s Brandon Kiefer picked up a silver in pole vault, and Mason Siebenhaar and James Glebocki effectively closed Dulaney’s path to victory by picking up five more points in the 3200.  The final score was Severna Park 55 and Dulaney 45, with Broadneck finishing in third with 31 points.
While the Falcons won by a seemingly fairly comfortable margin, every single point mattered. The interesting part is the mile and 3200. The biggest factor in the 1600 and 3200 was one of the states best runners was at home sick. Andrew Schell of Walter Johnson was seeded second in the 3200 and seventh in the 1600. His presence would have changed the result of those two races, which could have swung the result in Dulaney’s favor.
That is not to take away from the accomplishment of the Severna Park team, the challenges of this year, and the dedication of the athletes.
In the words of Coach Alcombright, “We were confident that we had a lot of strong points carrying over from Regionals and our guys were ready to handle the expectations. Our 4×2 and 4x4s came through huge for us at regions and states. We had a few hiccups at the State Meet in some of our usual strong events, but scoring in 9 of 13 events at States shows that we are well rounded this year. We felt that if everyone just focused on doing their jobs, then we would be right there in the mix for the win. We felt that we would be strongest on the track between 300-3200 meters which is where we’d get the bulk of our points. Jack DeBaugh was the core of that group.
This is a highly motivated group, so keeping them ‘focused’ wasn’t the difficult part. Figuring out where/what we were going to be competing for was. Fast times and big heights were the focus all season and unfortunately that wasn’t going to happen at the Armory so shifting the focus to winning a title was the goal. It was all about placing and competing (and figuring out the right footwear).â€
State Meet Results
https://live.athletic.net/meets/12898/scores