Junior Grace Gutowski and senior Giovanna Mantuano finished 15th and 21st and led the Paul VI to a mighty 3rd-place finish at the 53rd annual Meet of Champions Saturday morning at Holmdel County Park.
It was their best finish in 35 years.
Paul VI, ranked 5th in New Jersey, posted its best finish since 1990, when it placed 2nd to Voorhees. PVI was also 3rd in 1992.
Cherokee – ranked 7th – placed 4th with 154 points and Haddonfield – ranked 6th – placed 5thwith 166. All three beat No. 3 Voorhees and No. 4 Princeton.
Cherry Hill East was 8th with 207 and Ocean City 10th with 240, giving South Jersey five in the top 10 for the first time since 1990! More on that later today.
For now, let’s focus on Paul VI, which finished behind only a nationally No. 2 ranked parochial school from Scotch Plains with 39 points and Group 4 powerhouse Ridgewood with 92.
Gutowski ran 18:40.23, breaking Dawn Cody’s record for fastest time ever at Holmdel by a Paul VI girl. Cody ran 18:50 when she placed 5th in the 1982 Meet of Champions. Her previous Holmdel best was 19:38 at Parochial A states last year.
Mantuano also broke 19 minutes, taking 21st place in 18:53.38. Sophomore Morgan Kuzma and senior Macy Huber finished back-to-back in 71st and 72nd in 19:45.31 and 19:46.36 and sophomore Peyton Blake made it five under 20 minutes in 86th place in 19:58.55.
Freshman Isabella Suarez ran 20:34.04 and junior Kara Salamone 21:28.64 for Paul VI, whose top five averaged 19:24.77, 2nd-fastest ever by a South Jersey school behind Cherokee’s 19:23.40 from its win at the 2021 Meet of Champions.
Paul VI’s five scorers averaged 38 seconds faster than they did at the state Parochial A meet last weekend on the same course.
This was the first time since 1991 Paul VI had two girls in the top 25.
In 1991, Ynette Feliciano was 13th in 20:08 and Danielle Rollick 21st in 20:25. You can see how much faster girls XC has gotten since then when Gutowski and Mantuano had similar finishes Saturday but ran 75 and 105 seconds faster.
Holy Cross senior Julia Flanagan was South Jersey’s top finisher in 10th place in 18:33.43, which makes her the first Holy Cross girl in the top 10 in 31 years, since Kari Vigerstol placed 2nd to Heather Bury of West Orange at th 1992 race.
Cherry Hill East sophomore Addison Weiss placed 13th in 18:37.62 and Haddonfield senior Riley Austin 14th in 18:39.67. Also under 19 were the two Paul VI girls, Cherokee senior Alyssa Suriano [20th in 18:53.06] and Williamstown senior Sophia Aldridge [26th in 18:57:27], giving South Jersey an astonishing seven girls running sub-19 on the most challenging course in New Jersey.
The race produced four of the 10-fastest single-race times all-time by South Jersey schools.
I’ll have more on the team competition and the individual performances later today and over the next few days.
18:53.38
18:40.23
19:45.31
19:46.36
19:58.55
19:24.77
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 