Matthew McDevitt of Egg Harbor edged Millville senior Arjun Patel by a second to win a quad meet with runners from four schools Wednesday at Mainland Regional.
McDevitt ran 17:03 and Patel 17:04. Egg Harbor packed its five scorers in 45 seconds and won team honors 29-40 Cedar Creek.
Junior Matthew Reed ran 17:15 and placed 4th for EHT, and then the Eagles packed sophomore Ben Gettings, freshman Liam Aspenberg, sophomore Daniel Svec, senior Aaron Wagner and senior Chris Minshall between 7th and 11th, all between 17:34 and 18:15.
Cedar Creek was led by juniors Sean Martino in 3rd in 17:11, Vincenzo Vecchio 5th in 17:25 and Ryan McCann 6th in 17:34.
In the girls race, Sofia Day, the state Group 3 champ at 800 meters last spring with her 2:12.55 PR, made her 2024 debut and ran 19:14.
Egg Harbor had six of the next nine runners and edged Mainland 26-30 in team scoring.
For EHT, junior Paige Pacquing ran 19:56 for 2nd place, sophomore Addison Lambert was 3rd in 20:20, junior Devyn Per 5th in 20:48, freshman Carlee Steet 7th in 21:34 and sophomore Meghan Johnson was 9th in 22:13, backed up by senior Bithania Andemariam in 10th in 22:18.
Also in the top 10 were Mainland sophomore Cecilia Foreman [4th in 20:31], Mainland freshman Ella Mokienko [6th in 20:57] and Mainland senior Ava McDole [8th in 21:53].
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 