Now that I’m back and settled in at my apartment after a long day on Saturday going back and forth to the Penn Relays, let’s talk about what happened and what might happen in the next few weeks.

I know it’s still some time away, but I think this could be interesting. The league meets have been or will be getting under way within the next week or so and I feel like they are a decent indicator of where a team stands. That being said, I will start handicapping the favorites heading into counties.

I’ll focus on the Rockland boys today and then we’ll go from there over the next few weeks, with a break for Loucks, which is only next week.

Heading into this weekend, I believed that Ramapo was the best team in the county and probably the section. Now, as I’m sure most of you have heard, Mike Abelard, one of the team’s best runners, hurt his hamstring in the 400 relay on Friday. It might be a minor injury and he could be back in a week, but we don’t know.

This is a big blow to the Gryphons, he was one of the best runners on the team, and now the team, instead of finishing 1-2-3 in the sprints, they might only finish 1-2.

Are they still the best team in Rockland? Can a North Rockland or a Clarkstown South or even a Suffern throw its names into contention?

Personally, I think Ramapo is still the best team, even if Abelard doesn’t run again this season. They still have too many quality athletes and they will still win most of the sprinting events and all the relays, except the 3,200.

This is my problem with picking any team besides Ramapo, the distance events. There are too many quality runners that run the 800, 1,600, 3,200, or 3,200 relay for one team to sweep those events. Ramapo’s strength is its domination in one area. Then it’ll probably win the shot put, and no team will win enough points in the distance or field events to catch them.

If we look at the field events, again we see that the quality is spread throughout the county. You have McGill, Fowler, Carroll, and a few others who will win or place in their events. I think the injury to Abelard has moved Ramapo closer to the pack, but they are still the team to beat. N. Rockland has so many athletes that they will be right with Ramapo, but can they place in enough events? C. South will win its share of events, especially McGill, but Cranston and Sheppard among others will score points, but will it be enough?

What do you think? We’ll revisit Rockland as the meet gets closer and talk about Westchester later this week, but I thought with leagues coming up it would be an interesting topic to discuss.