Ryan Duffy shattered the DREAM Park freshman record by half a minute Saturday morning at the South Jersey Shootout.
[Word from DREAM Park is that a cart leading the runners made a wrong turn, cutting the course by an unknown amount. If we get any more information on that and adjusted times or a more accurate distance run, we’ll post something. Too bad, but Duffy will get another crack at the course record at sectionals.]
Duffy, a Kingsway freshman, won the Gold Championship Race on the 5,000-meter speedway in Logan Township in 15:40, edging Moorestown soph Peter Simpson [2nd in 15:46.4] and Williamstown junior Dylan Saber [3rd in 15:47.3].
Simpson set the previous freshman record of 16:10.1 this past October when he placed 9th at the South Jersey Group 3 sectionals.
This was Duffy’s first major high school race. He ran 16:25 to win a Tri-County Conference batch meet at Cumberland Regional on Tuesday.
Duffy ran 2:03.88 and 4:31.43 full mile as an 8th-grader and won USATF National Youth Outdoor Championships in both events. He also long jumped 19-1 ½.
The only faster Kingsway runner at DREAM Park is Kyle Rakitis, who ran 15:15.64 when he won 2021 Group 4 sectionals in 2021.
Simpson broke his own school record on the DREAM Park course. That was that 16:10 from last year’s sectionals. Saber became Williamstown’s fastest runner at DREAM Park by a fraction of a section. Nicholas Krol ran 15:47.44 at Group 3 sectionals last year.
Other South Jersey runners in the top 10 were Williamstown sophomore Dominic Burgio [5th in 16:00.8] and Shawnee sophomore Yanni Ekatomatis [8th in 16:16.0] and Shawnee junior Noah Stapleton [9th in 16:18.1].
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 
Hi Reuben,
Unfortunately the pace cart on the boys championship race at dream park today accidentally cut off part of the course. We are still waiting to hear how much was cut off, but we’ve heard it may be around 100m. Thus these times are not accurate for a 5k. We’ve been told they will be altering the distance that is reflected on njmilesplit.
Was still a good race and a new freshman record may have been set.
Thanks,
Alison Simpson
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Oh shoot, I guess that’s the XC equivalent of lap counters mis-counting laps in the 3,200 at the Bennett Center. It’s always something! Thanks for the heads up!
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Yep, exactly. Lol. The race yesterday at dream park is now showing as 2.x miles distance on milesplit.
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