Senior Alyssa Suriano placed 4th and senior Madeline Meder 11th and the Cherokee girls won their 2nd straight Shore Coaches Varsity A team title Saturday and their 3rd in the last five years.
Suriano ran 19:13 and Meder 20:08, and the Chiefs packed all five scorers in the top 25 in defeating Cherry Hill East, 79-92.
Also scoring for Cherokee were senior Sofia Recinto [20:30 in 18th], sophomore Erin Healy [22nd in 20:46] and senior Maya Kumar [24th in 20:53].
Cherokee averaged 20:18 on the challening 5,000-meter course at Holmdel County Park, their fastest ever at Shore Coaches. Their previous best average at Shore Coaches was 20:25 in 2021.
Official results have not been posted in five hours, but thanks to Cherokee coach Mark Jarvis for texting me copies of the printouts that were posted near the starting line.
Cherokee and Cherry Hill East are ranked 11th and 14th in New Jersey. Both finished well ahead of 4th-ranked Freehold Township, which was 3rd with 132 points.
Sophomore Addison Weiss led Cherry Hill East in 3rd place in 18:50, 3rd-fastest in Cherry Hill East history behind Theresa [18:18 in 2005] and Grace Yoon [18:28 in 2016, the only season she competed in XC].
Junior Ryleigh Budsock placed 9th in 19:57, sophomore Emmie Wang 19th in 20:31 and junior Katherine Grotini 29th in 21:02 for East.
Cherry Hill East actually had the fastest team average in the race at 20:17. East and Cherokee posted the 3rd- and 4th-fastest team averages ever by South Jersey schools at Shore Coaches, behind Ocean City’s 19:52 in 2024 and Haddonfield’s 20:08 in 2021. Clearview also averaged 20:18 in 2022.
Also under 21 minutes: Eastern junior Theresa Albertson [8th in 19:56], Egg Harbor Township senior Devyn Per [23rd in 20:48], Lenape junior Audrey McCorkl [26th in 20:57] and Egg Harbor freshman Corinne Conley [27th in 20:59]. Egg Harbor placed 5th with 170 points.
Previous South Jersey schools that won the Varsity A – largest-school – race: Paul VI in 1982 and 1987, Shawnee from 1991 through 1993, then five years in a row from 1995 through 1999, Cherry Hill East in 2006 and Lenape in 2007.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 