Cinnaminson junior Alex Boyko led 10 runners under 10 minutes Saturday and won the 3,200 at the Bubble with an overall personal best.
Boyko won the 3,200-meter run at the SJTCA meet at the Bennett Center in Toms River in 9:44.27, breaking his indoor-outdoor PR of 9:49.23 set at Group 2 sectionals last spring at Delsea. According to his MileSplit page, Boyko had never run an official indoor 3,200 before.
Boyko is coming off a terrific XC season that saw him place 11th at states and lead Cinnaminson to second place behind Haddonfield in the state Group 2 meet. This was his first open race on the track this winter.
The only South Jersey runner with a faster time this winter is West Deptford senior Jacob Cobb, who ran 9:31.91 at the Virginia Showcase in Virginia Beach earlier this week.
Five other South Jersey runners dipped below 10 minutes, and every one of them posted an indoor 3,200 PR and four of the five posted overall indoor-outdoor lifetime bests.
Lenape senior Jake Buniva [5th in 9:52.69], Cinnaminson junior Tyler Schill [6th 9:54.85], Highland junior Cole Knoedler [7th in 9:56.69], Rancocas Valley senior Andre Faigal [8th in 9:57.17] and Haddon Heights junior Jack Bolling [9th in 9:57.23] all broke 10 minutes.
Buniva broke his indoor and overall PRs, which had been 10:06.02 at Lawrenceville School last month indoors and 10:10.99 outdoors at Group 4 sectionals last spring at Washington Township.
Schill’s previous PR was 10:04.83 outdoors in the Night of 3200s at Cherokee last June. This was his first indoor 3,200.
Knoedler was also racing his first indoor 3,200. He lowered his overall PR from 10:25.30 from last March in a polar bear meet at Timber Creek.
Faigal’s indoor 3,200 PR was 10:21.31 from two years ago in a meet at Monmouth University in West Long Branch. He’s run slightly faster outdoors [9:56.87 last May at the Cherokee Last Chance Meet].
And Bolling had a PR of 10:24.73 from the Haddonfield Invitational last May outdoors and had also never run an official indoor 3,200.
Boyko, Buniva, Schill, Knoedler, Faigal and Bolling now rank No. 2 through 7 this year in South Jersey.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 