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.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 