Jun. 3—The Pennsylvania high school track season ended a little more than a week ago, but Butler High School's Drew Griffith is still running to glory and national prominence.
Griffith added to his legacy at last Thursday's HOKA Festival of Miles meet in St. Louis, when he became only the 22nd runner in U.S. high school history to run a sub-4 minute mile. Griffith won with a time of 3 minutes, 57.72 seconds.
Not only is he the 22nd runner to break four minutes, but Griffith's time was the fifth-fastest ever by a high school runner. It's also the best time in the mile by a Pennsylvania runner.
Griffith, a senior at Butler, is considered the best distance runner in WPIAL history. At the PIAA championship meet May 24-25, he set a national high school record in the 1,600-meter run and also set a PIAA Class 3A championship meet record in the 3,200. Only six days after he set the national record in the 1,600, he broke four minutes in the mile.
Griffith also set WPIAL championship meet records in 1,600 and 3,200 a few weeks ago. He won WPIAL and PIAA championships in cross country last fall and also won the national cross country championship in San Diego last December.
Note that the mile and 1,600 are different events. The mile is about 9.3 meters longer than the 1,600. Only the 1,600 — and not the mile — are run at PIAA meets.
Griffith will run two more high school meets in the next few weeks, including New Balance Nationals on June 13-16 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
St. John Kletter fifth
Mt. Lebanon's Logan St. John Kletter is one of the better distance runners in WPIAL girls history, and she finished fifth in the girls mile at the HOKA meet with a time of 4:37.44.
St. John Kletter has set WPIAL and PIAA championship meet records in distance races. St. John Kletter will also run at New Balance Nationals.
David ShieldsMt. Lebanon's David Shields is only the ninth WPIAL player to win the Gatorade Pennsylvania Player of the Year award. (Justin Guido/For the Post-Gazette)
Shields named Pa. baseball POY
Mt. Lebanon baseball player David Shields has been selected the Gatorade Pennsylvania Player of the Year. It's a pretty big honor, considering who has won the award in the past.
Among the list of former winners are players who made the major leagues and some who were first-round picks in the Major League Baseball draft, either out of high school or college. The award started in 1986, and the second winner was Montoursville's Mike Mussina, who went on to glory as a pitcher for the New York Yankees and is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
This is the 39th year of the award, and Shields is the second Mt. Lebanon player to win it. His selection comes on the 25th anniversary of the first. Josh Wilson won the award in 1999.
Eight WPIAL players won the award before Shields. Blackhawk's Brendan McKay won it twice. Shields, a senior known for his pitching, is a left-hander who has a 5-1 record this season, with the only loss coming in last week's WPIAL Class 6A championship when Mt. Lebanon lost to North Allegheny, 1-0. Shields gave up only five hits and struck out 11 in the game, but North Allegheny's David Posey pitched a no-hitter.
Shields missed some time early in the season while recovering from mononucleosis, but he is still 5-1 with a 0.40 ERA. In 35 innings, he has allowed only 14 hits, four walks and struck out 63. As a hitter, he has a .404 average with seven doubles and 18 RBIs. Mt. Lebanon plays in the PIAA playoffs Monday.
Shields has signed with the University of Miami, but is projected to go in the first few rounds of July's MLB draft. In its new draft rankings released this past Thursday, Baseball America had Shields rated at No. 59, and that includes college players.
Here are the former WPIAL players who were selected Gatorade Pennsylvania Player of the Year:
2017: Zach Kokoska, Latrobe
2016: Alex Kirilloff, Plum
2014: Brendan McKay, Blackhawk
2013: Brendan McKay, Blackhawk
2008: Zak Sinclair, West Allegheny
2004: Neil Walker, Pine-Richland
1999: Josh Wilson, Mt. Lebanon
1991: Paul Failla, North Allegheny
1986: Doug Peters, Shenango
Change of dates for state basketball
The PIAA is in a bind with dates of its state basketball championships. And get this: The show Cirque du Soleil is one of the reasons.
The backstory is that the PIAA announced a few weeks ago that it had a deal to continue to play the state basketball championships at Giant Center in Hershey through 2028. Giant Center was the only facility that bid to stage the games and the championships were set to be played March 21-23 of next year.
But since then, the PIAA has learned that Giant Center booked the show Cirque du Soleil the same dates as the basketball championships. So now what?
"We are in the process of discussion for moving the basketball championship dates either a week earlier or a week later," PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said. "We have to have input from the districts [around the state] to finalize."
Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh
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