If you followed New Jersey track and cross country in the mid-1990s, you remember Jen Pesce, who ran for Toms River North.

Pesce placed 7th in both the 1995 and 1996 XC Meet of Champions at Holmdel and placed 2nd in the 3,200 at the 1996 track MoC in 10:50.48.

Pesce is one of the top Masters runners in the U.S. these days and in February won the USATF 5K Masters Championship in Atlanta with a course-record 17:49.

This past weekend, she placed 3rd in one of the biggest 8Ks on the East Coast, the Ashenfelter Classic in Glen Rock with a 29:01.02. Former Millville runner Amanda Eller was 7th in 30:16.34.

Why are we writing about Pesce on a South Jersey track and cross country blog? Because according to the Ashenfelter results, she now lives in Shamong Township.

One weekend earlier, Pesce ran 29:00 and placed 12th in the massive Rothman 8K in Philly held a day before the Philly Marathon.

Pesce, 43, was also 2nd in the Broad Street Run in April in 59:16 and she’s listed with a 1:22.01 and a win in last year’s Love Run Half Marathon in Philadelphia.

Pesce, who runs for the Garden State Athletic Club, ran 17:32.46 on the track in April in a meet at Rider in Lawrenceville.

Ocean City junior Maeve Smith placed 11th out of nearly 200 runners Saturday in the Nike Cross Country Nationals Northeast Regional.

Smith ran 19:03.7 and was named to the Northeast All-Region second team. She was the 4th underclassman in the race and the 3rd junior.

Smith’s time is 3rd-fastest ever by a South Jersey girl on the course that’s been used for years for Nike Northeast Regionals. Briana Gess of Haddonfield ran 18:22.6 when she won the 2014 Bowdoin Classic, and Kingsway’s Rachel Vick ran 18:46.6 when she was 6th in the 2016 Nike Northeast Regionals.

Smith this fall won the South Jersey Group 3 race and was 3rd at states and 9th at the Meet of Champions.

Cherokee finished 9th in team scoring with 285 points, with senior Kerry O’Day leading the way in 18th place in 19:19.7. Junior Megan Niglio [47th in 20:10.6], senior Alaina Bromley [97th in 20:52.6], senior Olivia Parkinson [100th in 20:57.1] also broke 21 minutes for the Chiefs.

Mainland junior Sofia Day ran 19:46.2 and placed 31st out of 196 finishers and senior teammate Gillian Lovett was just behind in 44th with a 20:06.6.

Williamstown’s Sophia Aldridge was the 15th sophomore in the race, running 20:29.6 and placing 74th overall.

Top South Jersey finisher in the boys race was Ocean City senior Matt Hoffman, who place 75th out of nearly 300 runners in 17:08.0. Cherry Hill East junior Brody Bogos ran 17:17.9 for 94th.

Northern Burlington junior Liliah Gordon earned a trip to Foot Locker Nationals with a 7th-place finish at Northeast Regionals Saturday in Boston.

Gordon ran 17:51 over 5,000 meters at Franklin Park and was the top New Jersey finisher in the 45th annual Foot Locker Northeast Regional.

The top 10 finishers in each of four regional races qualify for the Foot Locker National Championships Dec. 9 at Balboa Park in San Diego.

She became the first South Jersey girl to place in the top 10 and qualify for nationals in seven years, since Mainland Regional’s Alyssa Aldridge won the 2016 race. She went on to place 13th in San diego.

Gordon is the second Burlington County Foot Locker national qualifier and the first since Cherokee’s Megan Lacy placed 3rd in the 2010 race at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

She joins Brittany Sedberry of Ocean City in 2004, Chelsea Ley of Kingsway in 2008, Briana Gess of Haddonfield in 2013 and Alyssa Aldridge of Mainland Regional in 2015 as the 5th girl from South Jersey to qualify for nationals as a junior.

Paul VI senior Shalean McNally was the 2nd finisher from South Jersey in 16th place in 18:31, just 15 seconds out of the top 10.

Gordon and McNally both placed in the top 25 last year, Gordon in 20th in 19:16.1 at Van Cortlandt park and MCNally 23rd in 19:L22.4.

Zariel Macchia of William Floyd High School of Mastic Beach on Long Island’s south shore in Suffolk County, N.Y., won the race in 17:13. Macchia, a member of the U.S. junior team that competed at the Pan Am Games, has run 4:47.00 for the full mile and 10:08.50 for two miles.

2023
*Liliah Gordon [Northern Burlington], 7th [17:51]
2016
Alyssa Aldridge [Mainland Reg.], 1st [17:40.3]
2015
Briana Gess [Haddonfield], 5th [17:44.2]
*Alyssa Aldridge [Mainland Reg,.], 6th [17:47.8]
2013
*Briana Gess [Haddonfield], 5th [17:43.2]
2011
Holly Bischof [Bishop Eustace], 4th [18:24.9]
2010
Megan Lacy [Cherokee], 3rd [18:08.0]
Megan Venables [Highland], 4th [18:11.0]
2009
Chelsea Ley [Kingsway], 3rd [18:33.1]
Marielle Hall [Haddonfield], 5th [18:36.4]
2008
*Chelsea Ley [Kingsway], 5th [18:08.3]
2007
**Chelsea Ley, [Kingsway], 10th [18:33.1]
2004
*Brittany Sedberry [Ocean City], 10th [18:33]
2003
**Brittany Sedberry [Ocean City], 2nd [18:16.4]
2001
Erin Donohue [Haddonfield], 2nd [18:07.8]
1998
***Erin Donohue [Haddonfield], 17th [18:36]
1982
Michelle Rowan [Washington Township] 2nd [17:28.7]

Peyton Shute placed 5th in the Foot Locker Northeast Regionals Saturday morning and earned a trip to San Diego for the Foot Locker Nationals.

Shute, a senior at Woodbury, ran 15:08 over 5,000 meters at Franklin Park in Boston and became the first South Jersey boy to qualify for nationals since Mainland’s Kevin Antczak in 2019 and the first from Gloucester County ever.

Shute was in 9th place through the first mile despite getting out in 4:41. He moved up to 5th with a 5:00 second mile.

The top 10 finishers in each race qualify for the Foot Locker National Championships Dec. 9 at Balboa Park in San Diego.

Ryan Pajak of Ringgold High in Monongahela, Pa., the PIAA Class 2A champ, remained undefeated, winning the race in 14:51.

Cherokee senior Nick Kuenkel placed 12th in 15:40 and missed qualifying for nationals by eight seconds. Kuenkel was in 17th place through two miles before moving up to 12th in the final 1.1 miles.

Audubon senior Aiden Williams also had an oustanding race, taking 21st overall in 15:59, best ever finish by an Audubon runner at Foot Locker.

Foot Locker moved from its long-time home at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to Boston this year. It was at Vanny every year from 1979 through 2022 other than 2009, when the meet was held at Sunken Meadow Park in Smithtown, Suffolk County, on Long Island.

The Northeast Region consists of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, D.C., and U.S. citizens in overseas military installations.

Here’s a look at all South Jersey qualifiers at Foot Locker (aka Kinney / Champs / Eastbay) Northeast Regionals:

Boys
2023
Peyton Shute [Woodbury], 5th [15:08]
2019
Kevin Antczak [Mainland Regional], 4th [15:24]
2015
*Josh Clark [Highland], 4th [15:28.4]
2014
Luke Petela [Haddon Twp.], 2nd [15:33.4]
Shawn Hutchison [Bishop Eustace], 10th [15:45.7]
2013
Lou Corgliano [Hammonton], 9th [15:40.7]
2012
Shawn Wilson [Cherokee], 3rd, [15:42.5]
2008
Brett Johnson [Ocean City], 8th, [15:50.1]
2003
Jonathan Anderson [Cinnaminson, 7th [15:30.4]
2001
Marc Pelerin [Cherokee], 6th [15:40.1]
1998
Nate Miller [Highland], 5th [15:49]
1997
*Murad Campbell [Overbrook], 2nd [15:27]
1988
Jason DiJoseph [Paul VI], 1st [15:17.6]
1987
*Jason DiJoseph [Paul VI], 4th [15:47]
Eric Lorenz [Holy Cross], 8th [15:50]
1986
**Jason DiJoseph [Paul VI], 6th [15:55]
1985
Kevin Pumphrey [Highland], 2nd [15:25.6]
Ron Faith [Paul VI] 6th [15:46]
1979
Jim Smith [Haddonfield] qualifier, unknown place [N/A]
Jerry Andrews [Highland], qualifier, unknown place [N/A]

Sophia Day, Maeve Smith and Kerry O’Day, who all placed in the top 10, lead the South Jersey contingent to this weekend’s Nike Northeast Regional Cross Country Championships.

Day, a junior at Mainland, Smith, a junior at Ocean City, and O’Day, a senior at Cherokee, will race at 2:15 p.m. Saturday at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls, N.Y.

Day and O’Day will compete with their full teams. Mainland senior Gillian Lovett, 7th in the state Group 3 meet, will join Day on the starting line.

Senior Claudia Booth, freshman Cecilia Foreman, senior Sophia Goldstein, junior Chloe Malone and junior Ava McDole will also run for Mainland, and senior Alaina Bromley, sophomore Maya Kumar, junior Megan Niglio, senior Olivia Parkinson, senior Madison Van Haren and junior Grace Wojciechowski for Cherokee.

Also entered in the girls race are Williamstown sophomore Sophia Aldridge, who placed 4th in the South Jersey Group 4 sectionals, and Ocean City freshman Lillian Flora.

In the boys race, Cherry Hill East will compete as a full team, with junior Brody Bogos, senior Raine Guidarelli, sophomore Alvin Lin, junior Brandon Lyons, sophomore Colin Moore, sophomore Milo Poerner and freshman Cian Sherlock.

Entered individually are Ocean City senior Matt Hoffman, the Cape-Atlantic Conference champion, and Glassboro junior Ty Blackman, who was 3rd in the state Group 1 meet.

Eight South Jersey runners are headed for Boston this weekend to race in the 45th annual Foot Locker Northeast Regionals.

The meet moves this year from its long-time home at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to Franklin Park. The boys race is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. and the girls race at noon.

The top 10 finishers in each race qualify for the Foot Locker National Championships Dec. 9 at Balboa Park in San Diego.

Woodbury senior Peyton Shute leads the South Jersey boys contingent. Shute, who will attend Cornell next year, is coming off a 2nd-place finish in the Meet of Champions with a 15:33 at Holmdel County Park. He ran 4:12.13 full mile and 9:11.11 for 3,200 meters last spring.

Cherokee senior Nick Kuenkel, who was 6th in the Meet of Champions, is also entered. Kuenkel will attend Monmouth next year.

Senior Aiden Williams, 2nd in the state Group 1 meet to Glassboro’s Elijah Whitaker, will represent Audubon in Boston.

Highland is sending both senior Aziz Muhammad-Kane and junior Mason Wassell to Foot Locker. Muhammad-Kane was 5th in the state Group 3 meet and Wassell was 19th.

Moorestown’s Peter Simpson is the lone South Jersey sophomore heading to Boston. Simpson ran 16:46 at Holmdel this year and was the No. 2 sophomore in the state Group 3 meet. He was the No. 5 freshman in New Jersey last year at 3,200 meters with a 9:41.81 at sectionals.

The girls race will feature Northern Burlington junior Liliah Gordon and Paul VI senior Shaelan McNally.

Gordon was South Jersey’s top runner at the Meet of Champions in 5th place with an 18:19 at Holmdel. She was 20th as a sophomore last year in Foot Locker, which was then called Champs Northeast Regional.

McNally, 11th in the Meet of Champions, finished 23rd at Champs last fall, just behind Gordon.

The most recent South Jersey boys qualifier for nationals was Mainland Regional’s Kevin Antczak, who placed 4th at regionals in 2019 and 8th at nationals.

The most recent girls qualifier was also from Mainland – Alyssa Aldridge won the 2016 Northeast Regional and went on to place 13th at nationals.

Foot Locker began in 1979 as the Kinney Cross Country Championships and was known as Foot Locker from 1993 through 2019. There was no race in 2020 and when it resumed in 2021, it was called the Eastbay Championships. When Foot Locker shuttered its Eastbay brand, it became known last year as Champs, another Foot Locker brand. It reverted to Foot Locker this year.

The meet was held at Van Cortlandt from 1979 through 2008, it was held in 2009 at Sunken Meadow State Park in Smithtown, Suffolk County, on the northern shore of Long Island, N.Y. It returned to Vanny in 2010 and remained there until this year.

The Northeast Region consists of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, D.C., and U.S. citizens in overseas military installations.

In what appears to be his first lifetime marathon, former Kingsway runner Ryan Magnus ran 2:49.53 at the Philadelphia Marathon Sunday and qualified for Boston.

The 28-year-old Magnus, who competed collegiately for La Salle, ran well under the three-hour qualifying standard for his age group (18-34) that doesn’t guarantee admittance into Boston but gives runners the opportunity to register. But running more than 10 minutes below 3:00 should give Magnus a very good chance to get into the 2024 Boston Marathon, which is scheduled for Monday, April 15.

Magnus came through 5K in 20:43, 10K in 41:25, 15K in 1:01.37, then 30K in 2:02.31 and 40K in 2:41.24. He ran his 10,000 from 30K to 40K in 38:53, his fastest 10,000.

Magnus placed 21st in the 2012 XC Meet of Champions in 16:15 and ran 9:33.31 for 3,200 meters at Kingsway. At La Salle, he ran 5,000 meters in 15:36.25 in a meet in Lawrenceville.

Haddonfield’s Marielle Hall, a 2016 Olympian at 10,000 meters, placed 9th in the Philadelphia Half Marathon Saturday morning.

Hall, 32, ran 1:14.51.83. She came through 5K in 16:47, 10K in 34:11, 15K in 52:14 and 20K in 1:10.40. Hall’s World Athletics page lists her with a 1:13.35 PR from Houston this past January, but she ran 1:10.19 at the Philly Half in 2022. Could be an net elevation loss disqualifies Philly from the half marathon rankings?

In any case, it was Hall’s first race since June 10, when she ran 33:13 and placed 17th in the Mastercard New York Mini10K.

Hall has track PRs of 4:32.77 in the mile, 15:02.27 for 5,000 meters and 31:05.71 in the 10,000 and road PRs of 15:08 and 32:51.

Kylie Anicic earned All-America honors Saturday with a 12th-place finish in the NCAA Division 2 cross country national championships – her final collegiate cross country race.

Anicic, a Kingsway graduate and Edinboro senior, ran a lifetime-best 20:12.2 over 6,000 meters on the Tom Rutledge Cross Country course in Joplin, Mo.

She was out in 5:19.8 for the first mile and in 29th place and gradually moved up to 22nd coming through 3,000 meters at 10:08.7, 18th at 4,000 meters in 13:30.5 and 15th at the 5K in 16:55.8 and then passed three runners in the final 1,000.

Her time is a 6,000-meter all-course PR. Her previous 6K best was a 20:13.7 in September when she won a race at Lock Haven.

Anicic placed 31st last year in her first NCAA Division 2 national championship race in University Place, Wash. Including indoor and outdoor track and XC, she’s now a six-time All-America.

She’s won the last two NCAA Atlantic Region titles and was named USTFCCCA Atlantic Region Runner of the Year.

Anicic’s 12th-place is the best by an Edinboro woman since at least 2010. Unfortunately, while Edinburg’s web site lists previous All-America performers in program history it does not list their place. And the USTCCCA web site does not list results before 2010. And I looked for a while but couldn’t find them anywhere.

Lindsay Cunningham of Winona (Minn.) State was the overall winner in 19:30.1. Grand Valley State of Allendale, Mich., won the team title with 59 points.

Clearview’s Anas Bensaoud, a freshman at Rowan College South Jersey, earned All-America honors Saturday with a 12th-place finish in the NJCAA National Championship race.

Bensaoud, the National Junior College Athletic Association Region 19 champion ran 27:16.6 over the 8,000-meter course at John Hunt Park in Huntsville, Ala. He was only 22 seconds out of 4th place in a very close group finish.

Bensaoud was a triple All-America last spring at the NJCAA track championships in Utica, N.Y. He was 3rd in the 1,500, 2nd in the 5,000 and anchored the 6th-place 4-by-8. He spent his freshman year at Stony Brook (N.Y.), where he ran one season of indoor track.

Rowan College placed 8th in the country in team scoring in the NJCAA’s Division 3 with 222 points. Harper College of Palatine, Ill., won the team title with 53 points.

Freshman Gavin Casella from Kingsway, sophomore John Schilling from Deptford, freshman Branden Lachowicz from Delsea and sophomore Charlie Hepler from Delsea also scored for RCSJ, and freshman Darius Davis from Kinsway and sophomore Derek Wylie from Gloucester County Tech also ran for the Roadrunners.