Sophomore Katie Rathman topped the field Saturday in the Championship Race at the 25th annual Carlisle Invitational, covering the 5,000-meter course in 19:05.

Rathman finished first out of 304 runners in the massive field on Carlisle High School’s home course. She beat second-place Margaret Carroll of Northeastern High in Manchester, Pa., by about 100 meters and led the Chiefs to fifth place out of 42 schools in team scoring.

Cherokee also had senior Sophia Eick under 20 minutes, 15th in 19:50. Senior Shannon Young was 34th in 20:19, sophomore Riley Gleason 92nd in 21:22 and senior Kayla Fericy 103rd in 21:35.

Lower Dauphin won with 109 points and averaged 20:04 per scorer. Cherokee’s 20:27 average was fourth-best in the field

Rowan senior Kevin Veltre, a Brick Memorial graduate, was first across the line Saturday in the Mike Woods Invitational, covering the 8,000-meter course in 24:44 and finishing a full 17 seconds ahead of the field.

SUNY Geneseo, ranked No. 2 in NCAA Division 3, finished with a 35-81 win over Rowan but averaged only 18 seconds per runner faster than the Profs, who had four sophomores and a junior in the top 50.

The race was held near the SUNY Geneseo campus in Letchworth State Park in Mount Morris, N.Y.

Veltre finished 90 meters ahead of Sean McAneny of Geneseo, who was second in 25:01.

Also for the Profs, junior Dan “Fitch” Henry (Clearview) placed 11th in 25:32, sophomore Matt Russo (Westfield) 17th in 25:44, senior Nick Nocco (Southern Regional) 28th in 26:01 and Jose Figueroa (Highland) 36th in 26:12. That scoring group was backed up by senior Alec Trapani (South Brunswick) in 38th (26:13), sophomore Jason Muermann (Pitman) in 43rd (26:18) and sophomore Dylan Tyrrell (St. Joe’s-Metuchen) in 46th (26:20).

Senior Alexis Mullarkey placed sixth in 20:19 and led the Kingsway girls to second place out of 15 teams in the Division 2 race of the Bowdoin Park Classic Saturday in Wappinger’s Falls, N.Y.

The rest of Kingsway’s scoring pack included Lauren Krott [18th in 21:09], Ashlynn Burke [26th in 21:32], Kyle Anicic [32nd in 21:44] and Allie Pierontoni [34th in 21:50]. Sydney Watts and Caleigh Kupniewski finished 40th and 44th.

James Madison of Vienna, Va., outscored Kingsway 67-106 to win the team title.

Kingsway’s average time of 21:20 was about 20 seconds per runner faster than Haddonfield, which placed third in the Division 1 race.

Allison Colflesh was Haddonfield’s first finisher, in ninth place with a 20:48. Payton Weiner [18th in 21:18], Lilly Minor [24th in 21:44], Izzy Miller [26th in 21:53] and Lilly Sirover [35th in 22:35] were also in the Bulldogs’ scoring pack.

The Haddonfield boys took a competitive second in Varsity 1, only 22 points behind Christian Brothers Academy. CBA finished with a 73-95 margin of victory. Kingsway was fourth with 115 points in the 22-team competition.

Martin Riddell [7th in 16:34], Greg Eisenhower [17th in 16:52] and Derek Gess [19th in 16:53] all broke 17 minutes for Haddonfield. Ethan Spellmeyer ran 27th in 17:14 and Griffin Weiner 30th in 17:19.

For the Kingsway boys, Kieran Burns [13th in 16:47] and Jonathan Connor [15th in 16:51] made the top 20 in the 151-runner race. Joe Grandizio [24th in 17:00], Cole Hindley [33rd in 17:23] and Cade Hindley [35th in 17:29] rounded out the Dragons’ scoring pack.

Kingsway did win the boys JV race, going 2-3-5-6-18 for 34 points. Brian Mangiaracina and Stephen Wilkins ran 18:03 and 18:06 to lead that Kingsway group.

You can find full results of the meet here.

Super team performance Friday night by the Mainland Regional boys, whose first first four runners broke 16:50 and who had a 36-second gap among their five scorers at the Osprey Invitational at Stockton University in Galloway.

Junior Artur Simons Menezes was Mainland’s first finisher, taking third in 16:31, with junior teammate Mikin Patel five seconds back in fourth. Senior Nicholas Berenotto and sophomore Kevin Antczak both ran 16:47 for sixth and seventh, and senior Tiger Carey ran 17:07 for 16th. Mainland was backed up by sixth man Kyle Antczak, a junior, three seconds behind in 17th.

That’s 3-4-6-7-16 for 36 points. Ocean City was second with 80 and Williamstown third with 108 points.

Pitman sophomore Sebastien Reed, fourth in the South Jersey Group 1 sectional last fall as a freshman, was the overall winner, covering the flat 5,000-meter course in 16:01 and winning by about 110 meters over senior Korey Green of Ocean City.

Ocean City junior Gavyn Fox (fifth in 16:43), Washington Township junior Evan Chu (eighth in 16:50), junior Michael Abriola of Williamstown (ninth in 16:56) and junior Jared Tricomy of Toms River South (10th in 16:56) rounded out the top 10.

There were 138 boys from 19 high schools in the varsity race.

Full results here: https://tomahawktiming.com/922-osprey-invite-boys-varsity/

Lenape senior Alexa Woltjen had herself quite a debut Saturday, running 19:05 in her first career 5,000-meter race.

Woltjen, a 5:01 miler for Lenape last spring, placed second in the 65th annual George School Invitational in Middletown, Pa. Sophomore Rebecca Wusinich of Friends Central, who ran 18:54.

Lenape placed four of its varsity pack of seven in the top 32, with senior Talia Harman second in 21st place (21:11), senior Meghan Gizzard 30th (21:21) and senior Tara Donoghue in 32nd place (21:25). Junior Haylen Conway ran fifth in 22:21.

Final scores looked like this: Scranton Prep (105), Council Rock (114), Lenape (150), Penn Charter (159), Upper Darby (189) and Germantown Academy (191)

Rounding out Lenape’s pack were junior Hayley Conway and sophomore Rebecca Thomas.

Ocean City senior Alex Weber beat the field by 140 meters in the stud race at the South Jersey Shootout Saturday in Glassboro.

Weber, ninth in the Group 3 state meet last year, covered the Rowan University 5,000-meter course in 18:50, finishing 32 seconds ahead of second-place Kate Rathman, a sophomore at Cherokee.

Weber’s teammate, Nicolette Brady, won the 4-5-6-7 race with a 20:42, finishing 125 meters ahead of second-place Gianna Scarangelli of Egg Harbor.

Full results of all the races are on Tomahawk Timing’s site. Click here.

Emily Johnson’s season is off to a good start for Seton Hall. The Wildwood Crest native placed fourth overall and was Seton Hall’s No. 2 runner as the Pirates placed second in the Monmouth University Kickoff over the weekend.

Johnson, a senior co-captain who ran at Wildwood Catholic, ran 14:45 over 4,000 meters at Thompson Park in Jamesburg. She finished just 18 seconds behind overall winner and senior teammate Christina Rutkowski from Middletown South.

Take a look at Johnson’s year-to-year improvement on the same course in the same season-opening meet in each of the last four years:

2014: 36th 16:40
2015: 36th in 16:18
2016: 14th in 15:27
2017: 4th in 14:45

Not bad for someone who had PRs of 5:25 and 11:51 in high school!

Monmouth out-raced Seton Hall 30-49 to win the team title in the seven-team race, which had 76 finishers.

Next for Seton Hall is the Wolfie Invitational at Stony Brook, N.Y., on Saturday morning.

South Jersey products Cole Pschunder, Luke Wiley and Dom Munson finished in an 18-second span to help Rutgers open the 2017 cross country season with a one-point win over Lehigh in the Lehigh Invitational over the weekend in Bethlehem.

The meet was held on Lehigh’s lower Goodman campus, the site of the NCAA Division 1 Championships in 1979, 1983 and 1993.

Pschunder, a sophomore from Eastern Regional, finished second overall in the field of 88 runners in 18:38, Wiley, a senior from Williamstown, ran seventh in 18:51, and Munson, a junior from Timber Creek, placed eighth in 18:54.

Conor Murphy, a graduate of Allentown High — which is almost in South Jersey – was Rutgers’ second runner, placing fifth overall in 18:51.

Rutgers outscored Lehigh 31-32 in the five-team meet. Rutgers went 2-5-7-8-9 for 31 points, and Lehigh went 1-3-6-10-12 for 32 points. So Lehigh was up 20-22 after four runners, but Rutgers’ fifth runner, Patrick Walsh, displaced Lehigh’s fifth runner by three spots to decide the meet.

Lehigh’s Joe Inglis, a Moorestown High graduate, placed 20th overall and was Lehigh’s ninth runner, just four seconds from the Mountain Hawks’ scoring pack.

Rutgers will race at historic Van Cortland Park this coming Saturday in the Fordham Invitational.

Toledo sophomore Amanda Bakley placed third in the Mel Brodt Invitational Friday with a time of 18:17 over 5,000 meters on a cold, windy day in Bowling Green, Ohio.

What makes this performance even more notable is that it was the first cross country race of her life.

Bakley, who ran 5:11 and 10:59 at Pennsauken and was also an All-America steeplechaser, never ran cross country in high school but at least based on her first race seems to have found a home running the trails.

Bakley ran as fast as 10:59 as a Pennsauken junior when she placed second in the 3,200 at the South Jersey Group 3 sectionals behind Devon Grisbaum of Ocean City. Bakley went on to place eighth at states and 15th in the Meet of Champions as a wild card entry.

Bakley, who played soccer in high school and also was an avid ice hockey player, red-shirted her entire freshman year at Toledo.

The Mel Brodt Invitational was really just a dual meet between Toledo and Bowling Green, and Toledo swept the top three places, with teammates Olivia Chinn (18:06) and Stephanie Barlow (18:08) preceding Bakley across the line.

Bakley will be back in action next Friday when Toledo races at the Illinois State Country Financial Invitational in Normal, Ill.

Alicia Belko, a Stockton University senior from Rancocas Valley, opened the 2017 cross country season with a commanding win over the field Friday in a dual meet with Rowan on Stockton’s campus in Galloway Township.

Belko covered the 6,000-meter course in 23:20.1, finishing 265 meters ahead of second place.

Belko, an All-America last spring in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, doesn’t have track eligibility remaining and is in her final year of cross country.

Rowan, with a largely South Jersey team, won the team title 35-24 over Stockton.

For the Profs, Hannah Vendetta of Pitman placed second in 24:31, with Jessica Nguyen fourth in 24:48, Alyssa Sanders of Pitman fifth in 24:50, Jennifer Klavens from Washington Township sixth in 25:04 and Grace Capone of Bordentown seventh in 25:33.