Liliah Gordon recorded her third straight top-8 finish at the Meet of Champions and recorded the highest finish by a South Jersey girl in six years Saturday morning.
Gordon, a Northern Burlington junior, placed 5th and led five South Jersey girls in the top 11 at the 51st annual MoC at Holmdel County Park. She ran 18:19 and finished just 27 seconds behind winner Emma Zawatski of Freehold Township.
It was the best finish by a Burlington County girl since Megan Lacy of Cherokee placed 4th in the 2010 race. Gordon 8th in 2021 and 7th last year.
Mainland Regional junior Sofia Day [7th in 18:34], Ocean City junior Maeve Smith [9th in 18:42], Cherokee senior Kerry O’Day [10th in 18:44] and Paul VI senior Shaelan McNally [11th in 18:51] also ran under 19 minutes.
This was the first time in 29 years five South Jersey girls have placed among the top 11 finishers in a Meet of Champions. In 1994, Jaime Weisgerber of Woodstown won the race, with Northern Burlington’s Colleen Sunderland 6th, Roxanne Hughes of Bishop Eustace 8th, Camden Catholic’s Kacy Corbett 9th, Eustace’s Kathleen Linck 10th and Eustace’s Adrianne DelSol 11th.
We’ll have more on Day, Smith, O’Day and McNally soon, but first a look at how rare Gordon’s three top-10 finishers are.
Gordon is only the eighth South Jersey girl in more than half a century with three top-10 finishes, and she’ll have the opportunity next fall to join two all-time greats – Olympian Erin Donahue and Mainland’s Alyssa Aldridge – as the third South Jersey girl to finish in the top 10 four years in a row.
Here’s a look at the eight South Jersey girls with three consecutive top-10 Meet of Champions performances. Interesting that Ley, Venables and Lacy – three of the best in South Jersey history – all overlapped from 2007 through 2011.
Liliah Gordon [Northern Burlington]
8th in 2021, 7th in 2022, 5th in 2023
Alyssa Aldridge [Mainland Regional]
2nd in 2014, 1st in 2015, 1st in 2016, 2nd in 2017
Megan Lacy [Cherokee]
7th in 2009, 4th in 2010, 7th in 2011
Megan Venables [Highland]
5th in 2008, 2nd in 2009, 1st in 2010
Chelsea Ley [Kingsway]
3rd in 2007, 2nd in 2008, 1st in 2009
Brittany Sedberry [Ocean City]
5th in 2002, 1st in 2003, 1st in 2004
Erin Donahue [Haddonfield]
10th in 1997, 2nd in 1998, 1st in 1999, 1st in 2000
Liz Moore [Shawnee]
6th in 1991, 5th in 1992, 2nd in 1993
An hour after the race ended, we still don’t have full results, which in this day and age with chip timing and live real-time results ought to be impossible. But that’s the NJSIAA for you. Can you imagine if they held a state championship wrestling match or a football and didn’t release any results for more than an hour after it ended?
But we’ll have more from the Meet of Champions as soon as we know what happened!
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 