Just an update on Shore Coaches, and it’s not a good one.

The last varsity results posted were Boys Varsity E, a race that began at 10:30 a.m. and finished around 10:50 a.m. with the final runners. It’s now 8:50 p.m., so it’s been 10 hours since the largest cross country meet in New Jersey managed to post anything.

The only excuse they’ve given is poor internet at Holmdel County Park, which is absurd, since it’s been five hours since the last race ended – Boys J.V. A. I seriously doubt whoever is responsible for timing is still sitting at the park waiting for a better internet connection when they could have driven home and posted the results. Heck, in five hours they could have driven to Boston and posted them.

And still nothing. No explanation, no apology, no estimate on when results will be available.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to post anything tomorrow because of my real job, so it’ll be till Monday afternoon till I have a chance to catch up on races that ended hours ago.

The real losers here are the kids. The ones who PR’d and would love to see where they finished. The ones who ran a Holmdel school record and can’t wait to see their official time. The ones who are just starting out as runners and are learning that what’s standard in other sports – finding out who won or lost and what the score was – is often unavailable in our sport.

We’ve all seen delays in results getting posted from small county or conference meets that don’t have FAT timing. We’ve all seen larger meets post results an hour or two after a meet. But in my 43 years covering track in South Jersey I have never seen anything like this.

We used to sit on rickety middle school desks at the finish line typing results into our old Radio hack laptops and we still had them available to readers faster than this, and that was 25 years ago.

This is unacceptable and it’s embarrassing and it’s a shame that such a great meet can’t figure out how to post results of races that ended 10 hours ago.

I will ask this: If you took a picture of any varsity races after Boys E please shoot them over to me in the comment section! Thanks!

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.

The last varsity race that results have been posted for is Boys Varsity E, which started at 10:30 a.m. and finished before 11 a.m. It’s now 3:25 p.m. and the “live results” page hasn’t been updated in more than four hours. This after the first few races had incorrect places and times.

I don’t even know what to say anymore. It seems like every track and XC meet in North Jersey has timing issues that we never see in South Jersey.

We keep hearing there are “internet issues” at Holmdel County Park, but there are so many workarounds that this lame excuse is unacceptable.

It’s 2025, for crying out loud.

If you don’t have access to a satellite phone to get around whatever internet issues there really are and if a wireless hotspot really doesn’t work – which I doubt is even true – have somebody set up at the Dunkin Donuts four miles away on Bethany Road or at the McDonald’s 4 ½ miles away on Rte. 35. Both have high-quality Wi-Fi. Have someone take results on a flash drive to the Dunkin or McDonald’s, where they can be posted immediately. Have two drivers and you can have all the results posted minutes after each race. Heck, I’ll volunteer to be one of the drivers.

If they really wanted the results available, they would be creative and find a way.

In the meantime, here are stories from a couple of the early races about Cinnaminson’s Jacob Wickersham  and Julia Flanagan

As soon as we have more to post, I promise we will!

EDIT: Just an additional note that now if you click on “LIVE RESULTS” you get results from an indoor track meet in Lawrenceville on Dec. 14, 2024. Big hurdles race for Sofia Swindell, who’s now a freshman at Penn.!

You keep being you, Shore Coaches!

Cinnaminson senior Jacob Wickersham continued his outstanding fall season with a 2nd-place finish in the Varsity E race at the 53rd annual Shore Coaches Invitational.

Wickersham ran 16:21 over 5,000 meters at Holmdel County Park and placed 2nd, just three seconds behind Bernards senior Brody Watt of Bernards, a 4:12 miler.

Wickersham’s previous Holmdel best was a 16:43 at last year’s Meet of Champions, so he beat that by 22 seconds on Saturday morning.

His time is fastest by a Cinnaminson runner since Austin Gabay ran 15:58 at the 2019 Shore Coaches Invite.

Also in the top 10 were Haddonfield senior Michael Sinnes [4th in 16:45] and Cedar Creek senior Sean Martino [16:51].

Also in the top 20 were Woodstown senior Jacob Marino [17:01], Middle Township junior Jamar Mack [16th in 17:16], Haddonfield senior Brandon Stoner [17th in 17:16] and junior Lucas Laganella [18th in 17:23] and senior Cedar Creek Ryan McCann [19th in 17:26].

Haddonfield, competing without most of its top group, placed 2nd in team scoring with 120 points. Bernards won with 48.

Woodstown took 3rd [142], Cinnaminson was 4th [161] and Cedar Creek placed 6th [190].

Senior Julia Flanagan ran the fastest time ever by a Holy Cross girl on the legendary Holmdel County Park course Saturday morning at the 53^rd annual Shore Coaches Invitational.

In a race with two of the top schools in the counry – No. 3 Union Catholic and No. 24 Shenendehowa of Clifton Park, N.Y – Flanagan placed 8^th overall in  18:51 [we think].

Her previous Holmdel best was 20:08 at last year’s Meet of Champions, so she beat that by .

Because of the usual timing issues when any company other than Tomhawk is involved, Flanagan was initially credited with a time of 30:51 with the winning time showing as 28:57. Her time was briefly listed as 18:51 before going back to 30:51.

It’s unbelievable that in 2025 major track and cross country meets still can’t get results correct.  Unbelievable but not that surprising since it happens all the time.

In any case, the previous best time at Holmdel was 19:17 by Kari Vigerstol when she won the 1994 Parochial A state meet by over half a minute.

Villanova freshman Maeve Smith from Ocean City led the South Jersey contingent Friday at the 51^st annual Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh.

Smith covered the challenging 6,000-meter course mostly in Bethlehem and partly in Lower Saucon Township in a lifetime all-course best 21:03 in the Women’s Gold Race.

She was the 8^th-fastest of nearly 400 freshmen women in the four college races and placed her 80^th-fastest out of nearly 1,400 runners in the race merge.

Smith was Villanova’s 6^th finisher, and the Wildcats – unranked last week in the national poll – won the team title 110-115 over No. 15 Penn State. PSU is ranked No. 1 in the USTFCCCA Mid-Atlantic Region, followed by West Virginia, Georgetown, Princeton and Villanova. Georgetown was 3^rd with with 143 points. West Virginia didn’t race at Paul Short. Princeton competed in a non-scoring race.

For Smith, her time over 6,000 meters was almost the same pace as her fastest race ever over 5.000 meters. And she did it on a challenging course that hosted the NCAA Championships in 1979, 1983 and 1993.

A 21:03 on a 6,000-meter course is 17:32 pace for 5,000 meters. Smith’s 5,000 PR is 17:27 from the 2023 Cape-Atlantic Conference Championships on the flat, fast Stockton University course in Galloway Township.

Eastern graduate Alexis Tepper, a junior at Maryland-Baltimore County, was the Retrievers’ top finisher and ran 21:17 in the Women’s Gold Race and was the 2^nd-fastest South Jersey runner.

East Stroudsburg junior Payton Falkenstein from Burlington Township placed 15^th in the Women’s Brown Race and ran 21:25, some 89 seconds faster than she ran last year.

Penn State freshman Liliah Gordon from Northern Burlington ran 21:28, an all-course PR in the Women’s Gold Race. She ran 21:30 in a home meet in State College last month.

La Salle junior Helene Usher ran 21:30 and was the Explorers’ 2^nd placer, finishing 1.2 seconds behind Gordon in the Gold Race.

Delsea grad Carly Nicholson, a Rutgers grad student from Elk Township and a transfer from Louisiana State, ran 21:31 in the Gold Race and was the Scarlet Knights’ 2^nd finisher. Her previous all-course 6,000 PR was 22:08 from a meet last month in East Lansing.

Villanova’s Maeve Smith from Ocean City is 9^th-fastest out of 400 freshman at Paul Short, fast times also for Alexis Tepper, Carly Nicholson, Payton Falkenstein, Liliah Gordon, Helene Usher!

Also, senior Gabriella Pagano from Sparta High placed 8^th in the Women’s White Race in 21:14, leading Rowan and smashing her all-course 6,000 PR of 21:25 set in Salisbury, Md., in August.

Some 59 South Jersey schools are entered in the 53^th running of the massive Shore Coaches Invitational, scheduled for Saturday at historic Holmdel County Park. The meet began in 1970 but wasn’t held in 1971, 1976 or 2020.

More than 3,000 runners are expected to compete in 26 varsity, J.V. and freshman races, including seven varsity boys races and six varsity girls events.

The meet starts at 9 a.m. with the boys J.V. E race and concludes seven hours later with the boys J.V. A race, which starts at 3:40 p.m.

Here’s a look at who’s running which race along with a race schedule. Later this week, we’ll take a look at every South Jersey individual and team that’s ever won at Shore Coaches going back to the 1970 Sterling boys.

Boys
Varsity A [2 p.m.]
Cherokee
Cherry Hill East
Eastern
Egg Harbor Township
Gloucester Tech
Lenape
Washington Township
Williamstown

Varsity B  [1:40 p.m.]
Atlantic City
Bridgeton
Kingsway
Northern Burlington
Rancocas Valley
Shawnee
Winslow Twp.

Varsity C [1:10 p.m.]
Clearview
Delsea
Deptford
Hammonton
Mainland Regional
Moorestown
Ocean City
Pennsauken
Triton

Varsity D [12:40 p.m.]
Burlington City
Delran
Gloucester
Seneca
Timber Creek
West Deptford

Varsity E [10:30 a.m.]
Bishop Eustace
Camden Catholic
Cedar Creek
Cinnaminson
Collingswood
Haddonfield
Lower Cape May
Middle Township
Salem Tech
St. Augustine
Sterling
Woodstown

Varsity F [10 a.m,]
Buena
Co-op Gateway/Woodbury
Glassboro
Haddon Heights
Haddon Township
Holy Cross
Maple Shade
Oakcrest
Paul VI
Paulsboro

Varsity G [9:30 a.m.]
Audubon
Schalick
Moorestown Friends
Palmyra
Pitman
Riverside
Wildwood Catholic

Girls
Varsity A [1:25 p.m.]
Cherokee
Cherry Hill East
Eastern
Egg Harbor Township
Lenape
Rancocas Valley
Washington Township

Varsity B [12:55 p.m.]
Gloucester Tech
Kingsway
Moorestown
Shawnee
Williamstown
Winslow Twp.

Varsity C [12:25 p.m.]
Clearview
Atlantic City
Bridgeton
Delsea
Deptford
Hammonton
Mainland Regional
Northern Burlington
Ocean City
Pennsauken
Seneca
Triton

Varsity D [10:55 a.m.]
Delran
Gloucester
Middle Township
Paul VI
Sterling
West Deptford
Woodstown

Varsity E [10:15 a.m.]
Bishop Eustace
Buena
Burlington City
Camden Catholic
Cinnaminson
Collingswood
Glassboro
Haddon Heights
Haddon Township
Haddonfield
Holy Cross
Lower Cape May
Moorestown Friends

Varsity F [9:45 a.m.]
Audubon
Cedar Creek
Schalick
Maple Shade
Oakcrest
Palmyra
Paulsboro
Pitman
Riverside
Wildwood Catholic

Race Schedule
9 a.m. – Boys JV E
9:15 a.m. – Girls JV C
9:30 a.m. – Boys Varsity G
9:45 a.m. – Girls Varsity F
10 a.m. – Boys Varsity F
10:15 a.m. – Girls Varsity E
10:30 a.m. – Boys Varsity E
10:45 a.m. – Girls Varsity D
11:10 a.m. – Boys Freshman C
11:25 a.m. – Girls Freshman B
11:40 a.m. – Boys Freshman B
11:55 a.m. – Girls Freshman A
12:10 p.m. – Boys Freshman A
12:25 p.m. – Girls Varsity C
12:40 p.m. – Boys Varsity D
12:55 p.m. – Girls Varsity B
1:10 p.m. – Boys Varsity C
1:25 p.m. – Girls Varsity A
1:40 p.m. – Boys Varsity B
2 p.m. – Boys Varsity A
2:20 p.m. – Boys JV D
2:35 p.m. – Girls JV B
2:50 p.m. – Boys JV C
3:05 p.m. – Girls JV A
3:20 p.m. Boys JV B
3:40 p.m. – Boys JV A

Sophomore Wyatt Evans and junior Duke Snyder-Shellito placed 1-2 and led Gloucester County Tech to the team title Wednesday at the South Jersey Tech School Championships in Westampton.

Evans ran 17:15 and Snyder-Shellito 17:40 over 5,000 meters at Westampton Tech, and Gloucester won 22-73 over Salem Tech, with Medford Tech a close 3^rd with 75 points. Gloucester went 1-2-5-6-8.

Also in Gloucester’s top five were junior Ryan Ejjalili [5^th in 18:45], junior Logan Monaghan [6^th in 18:49] and freshman A.J. Trampe [8^th in 19:00].

Also in the top 10: Medford Tech senior Marcos Paulino [3^rd, 17:54], Medford junior Chris Davis [4^th, 18:22], Cape May Tech senior Evan Feliciano [7^th, 18:50], Atlantic County sophomore Carlos Blackman [9^th, 19:03] and Salem freshman Levi Seals [10^th, 19:04].

Gloucester also won the girls meet, outscoring 2^nd-place Atlantic County Tech 17-60.

Gloucester sophomore Jordan Moczydlowski was first across the line in 21:05, and after Cape May County senior Kirstyn McHale took 2^nd in 22:58, Gloucester had the next three finishers: junior Natalie Pandolfo [3^rd, 23:02], sophomore Isabel Guerra [4^th, 23:07] and freshman Frances Carnevale [5^th, 23:32]. Gloucester’s 5^th scorer was junior Eunice Sta Clara [9^th, 24:58].

Also in the top 10: Cape May freshman Rosa Cameron [6^th, 23:35], Burlington sophomore Addisyn Kriza [7^th, 23:51], Atlantic County senior Aniyah Hargis [8^th, 24:46] and Salem freshman Paityn Harrington [10^th, 25:03].

Collingswood senior Landon Forero recorded his first win in track or cross country Tuesday when he was 1st of 54 runners in a five-team Colonial Conference batch meet at West Deptford Park.

Forero ran 17:35 and won by 250 meters over Gloucester seniors Vincent Kelly and Marcus Flagg, who both ran 18:34.

Also in the top 10 were Collingswood sophomore Owen Garvey [4th, 19:13], West Deptford junior Hunter Whinna [5th, 19:13], Paulsboro junior Jeffery Taylor [6th, 19:23], Gloucester senior Johnny Chen [7th, 19:25], Collingswood junior Michael Huerta [8th, 19:28], Gloucester senior Trey Reed [9th, 19:32] and Colingswood senior Josiah Zook [10th, 19:32].

West Deptford senior Kayla Romanoski won the girls race in 20:51, with Collingswood sophomore Hazel Straight and senior Macie Straight 2nd and 3rd in 20:57 and 22:23. Lindenwold senior Daisy DelaRosa placed 4th in 22:52.