From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

It was a terrific day at states Saturday for Cherry Hill East, which placed fourth in the state Group 4 meet but finished only one point out of second and posted one of the 20-fastest team times ever at Holmdel by a South Jersey school.

This is a very young Cherry Hill East team, with only one senior in the top five, and it’s off to the Meet of Champions to take one more crack at the Holmdel hills.

Led by senior Oliver Adler and juniors Aidan Eyre and Gabe Rodriguez, East posted the 6th-fastest average time of every school in all six state championship races.

East entered the state rankings this week but is still ranked too low at No. 9 in this week’s poll. East at states ran faster than three of the eight teams ranked above them and also finished ahead of all three in the merge.

In N.J. MileSplit’s meet merge, East placed sixth with 318 points, behind only CBA (83), Mendham (186.5), Haddonfield (242), Cherokee (252) and West Windsor-Plainsboro North (278).

Here are the 10-fastest team averages from Saturday at Holmdel County Park:

16:15 … CBA [1st Parochial A]
16:21 … Mendham [1st Group 3]
16:34 … Haddonfield [1st Group 2]
16:34 … Cherokee [1st Group 4]
16:40 … St. Peter’s Prep [2nd Parochial A]
16:41 … Cherry Hill East [4th Group 4]
16:42 … West Windsor-Plainsboro North [2nd Group 3]
16:44 … Ridge [2nd Group 3]
16:48 … North Hunterdon [3rd Group 4]
16:53 … Old Bridge [6th in Group 4]

Here’s the all-time South Jersey Holmdel team time list. Cherry Hill now has five of the top 20 times in S.J. history. In fact, four schools — Haddonfield [9], Cherry Hill East [5], Mainland Regional [4], Cherokee [4] and Kingsway [3] are responsible for 25 of the 26-fastest times ever run at Holmdel by South Jersey schools.

The only other school that’s averaged 16:45 or faster is Haddon Township, which averaged 16:41 at the 2014 Meet of Champions.

1:21.38 …….. Mainland Regional, 2003, Meet of Champions [1] 16:19
1:21:38.40 … Haddonfield, 2010, Meet of Champions [2] 16:19
1:21.47.8 ….. Haddonfield, 2001, Meet of Champions [1] 16:21
1:21.54.72 … Kingsway, 2017, Group 4 [1] 16:22
1:22.05 …….. Mainland Regional, 2003, Group 4 [1] 16:25
1:22.10.23 … Cherry Hill East, 2014, Group 4 [1] 16:26
1:22.31.39 … Haddonfield, 2018, Meet of Champions [2] 16:30
1:22.36.50 … Cherry Hill East, 2014, Meet of Champions 16:31
1:22.40.09 … Cherry Hill East, 2015, Group 4 [2] 16:32
1:22.47.31 … Haddonfield, 2019 Group 2 [1] 16:33
1:22.48.52 … Cherokee, 2019 Group 4 [1] 16:33
1:22.52.92 … Kingsway, 2014, Group 4 [2] 16:34
1:22.55.00 … Cherokee, 2019, Shore Coaches [3] 16:35
1:22.59.94 … Cherokee, 2000, Meet of Champions [2] 16:35
1:23.05.92 … Haddonfield, 2009, Group 2 [1] 16:37
1:23.07.58 … Haddonfield, 2009, Meet of Champions [4] 16:37
1:23.22.69 … Haddonfield, 2015, Meet of Champions [4] 16:40
1:23.23.75 … Cherry Hill East, 2018 Group 4 [4] 16:40
1:23:26 …….. Cherry Hill East, 2019 Group 4 16.41
1:23.26.98 … Mainland Regional, 2002, Group 3 [1] 16:41
1:23.29.78 … Haddon Twp., 2014, Meet of Champions [10] 16:41
1:23.30.28 … Haddonfield, 2014, Group 2 [1] 16:42
1:23.39.03 … Kingsway, 2014, Meet of Champions [4] 16:43
1:23.40.91 … Mainland Regional, 2002, Meet of Champions [1] 16:44
1:23.43.72 … Cherokee, 2004, Meet of Champions [5] 16:44
1:23.44.08 … Haddonfield, 2015, Group 2 [2]

Adler ran 16:01 for East at states and placed third behind only Southern’s Jackson Braddock and Cherokee’s Ethan Wechsler.

Eyre [14th in 16:34] and Rodriguez [20th in 16:40] gave East three in the top 20, and sophomores Dylan Hagan [52nd in 17:04] and Ethan Anderer [55th in 17:07] made it five across the line in a 66-second span, which is impressive when you have a front-runner like Adler.

For Eyre, the 16:34 was a 40-second Holmdel PR over his 17:14 that he ran to win the Shore Coaches JV race. So he’s gone from running JV in October to finishing 14th at states in November!

Rodriguez lowered his Holmdel from 16:56, Hagan from 17:21 and Anderer from 17:07 — all at Shore Coaches.

Junior Aidan Groff, East’s sixth man, also PR’d at 17:44, down 33 seconds from last year’s state meet. Senior Paul Bruce also raced for East.

This will be Cherry Hill East’s sixth trip to the Meet of Champions. The Cougars placed 8th in 1981, then had a 31-year gap before placing 9th in 2013. The 2014 team placed 3rd, the best in school history, and the next year they were 8th. Last year East was 12th.

East advanced to the Meet of Champions as the top wild-card team. The top two teams in each group qualified automatically and then the next eight-fastest also qualified.