When Cherokee senior Justin Kelly was disqualified after winning the South Jersey Group 4 XC title, it turned Kingsway senior Joe Grandizio into the sectional champion.
When Kelly was re-instated, one of the key guys who helped in the process was … Kingsway senior Joe Grandizio.
A truly inspiring story about sportsmanship and fair play came out of the South Jersey Group 4 race Saturday at Delsea!
Kelly and Grandizio finished 1-2 in the Group 4 race, Kelly in 15:46 and Grandizio in 15:50 – the No. 1 and No. 3 times of the day over the fast 5,000-meter course at Delsea.
Grandizio led a remarkable Kingsway pack – the Dragons went 2-3-4-8-9 to win their first sectional title since 2012 and outscored Cherokee 26-64. And Southern Regional was third with 111 points. So there was no question about who won the team title and who was second.
But soon after Kelly crossed the line, the Cherokee coaches learned he had been disqualified for allegedly cutting inside a flag on a remote part of the course at about the 2.3-mile mark, behind the high school near Fries Mill Road.
With or without Kelly, Cherokee would place second and advance to states next week. But a DQ meant Kelly would be disqualified from the “tournament,” which in this case meant states and the Meet of Champions, if Cherokee qualified.
But Kelly and all the runners around him were positive he didn’t run inside that flag and cut the course. This is an experienced senior who’s run numerous times at Delsea. He knows the course. He knows the rules.
Cherokee immediately appealed the DQ to meet referee Carl Rickershauser and in most cases these things aren’t reversed, but when the official who made the initial ruling suddenly became unsure who he saw cut the course there seemed to be hope for Kelly’s reinstatement.
Then it was up to the only witnesses to the alleged infraction to tell Rickershauser what they saw.
Who were the witnesses?
Grandizio and some of the other Kingsway runners!
Nobody runs a classier program than Kingsway coach Christian Lynch, and his kids didn’t hesitate to let Rickershauser know that Kelly had definitely NOT cut inside the flag on the course. Even though it meant Grandizio might lose his sectional title, he and his teammates urged meet officials to reinstate Kelly and restore his well-deserved sectional title.
And nobody was more sure that Kelly should be reinstated than Grandizio!
Eventually, Rickershauser correctly over-ruled the official and then it was up to the Cherokee coaches to find Kelly, who by then was on his cool-down run, and let him know he had his title back.
And everybody was happy. Turner got the title he earned, Kingsway got the team title they earned and everybody at Delsea saw once again that cross country is a sport of tremendous competitiveness but even more so one of unparalleled sportsmanship.
Kingsway, ranked No. 1 in South Jersey and No. 2 in the state, ran a monster race, with three runners under 16 minutes (!!!) and two others at 16:10. It came out to an insane 15:59 average.
Senior Jonathan Connor and junior Kieran Burns placed third and fourth for the Dragons, both in 15:53, and seniors Cade and Cole Hindley finished eighth and ninth in 16:10. Senior 6th man Brian Mangiaracina ran 13th in 16:20, beating the third runner from every other team.
Cherokee, ranked No. 3 in South Jersey, didn’t run badly, with six in the top 23, including three sophomores, and a 16:20 team average.
Sophomores Chris Spisak and Chase Miller placed sixth and 16th for the Chiefs in 16:08 and 16:29, and seniors Brandon Marks and Jonathan Conn ran 16:38 and 16:40 to place 20th and 21st. Another soph, Ethan Wechsler, placed 23rd overall in 16:41 and was Cherokee’s sixth man.
The top three sophomores in the race were all from Cherokee.
Kelly joins Marc Pelerin [2001], Alex Yersak [2005-07], Shawn Wilson [2012] and Jack Shea [2017] as individual sectional champs for Cherokee. The Chiefs now account for seven of the last 17 individual titles.
Kingsway won the race Saturday, but that wasn’t even its most impressive performance of the day!
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 