The Pierontoni Sisters won the South Jersey Group 4 team championship Sunday.

OK, that’s not exactly true. The Pierontoni sisters got a lot of help Sunday in their sectional championship performance. Senior pole vaulter Allison Bobst, one of South Jersey’s most versatile athletes, cleared 10-0 and tied for second place for seven big points.

But the Pierontoni’s — seniors Allison and Emily and freshman Aubrey — did score enough points Sunday to win an extremely competitive, extremely deep South Jersey Group 4 by themselves.

Kingsway scored 58 points, and the Pierontoni’s scored 51 of them in the South Jersey Group 4 meet at the Bubble in Toms River.

Kingsway outscored some of the state’s top teams — mighty Egg Harbor Township was second with 49 points, outdoor state Group 4 co-champ Millville was third with 44 1/3, sprint/hurdles powerhouse Eastern was fourth at 36 and state Group 4 co-champ Rancocas Valley fifth at 22.

Allison Pierontoni won the 800 in 2:21.24, PR’d in a very fast 1,600 at 5:04.98 and won the 3,200 in 11:19.46.

Emily took second in the 800 in 2:21.72 – a big indoor PR from her 2:24.03 last weekend at Ocean Breeze – and also in the 3,200 in 11:26.60, a six-second PR from earlier this month.

And Aubrey added a fast sixth-place in the 1,600 with a 5:13.84, a 3 1/2-second PR, and also ran 11:43.25 for fourth in the 3,200.

The sectional title is the second indoors for Kingsway, which won SJ-4 in 2015.

Adam Tomeo, a junior at Audubon, went into states with an indoor high jump PR of 6-2 and a lifetime best of 6-4.

Not bad.

He left the Bennett Center Sunday with a fancy new PR of 6-7.

Tomeo won the South Jersey Group 1 high jump with a three-inch overall PR and a five-inch indoor PR. He fell one inch shy of the Group 1 meet record of 6-8, set in 2015 by Pleasantville’s Tariq Adams, and the overall South Jersey sectional meet record of 6-8 shared by Adams and Williamstown’s Devin Bradham, who cleared 6-8 in Group 4, also in 2015. Adams’ mark is also the best in any Group 1 sectional.

But Tomeo has another year to go after those records and a bunch of others.

His mark makes him No. 1 in South Jersey this year, one inch ahead of Kameron Smith and Nate Robertson of Willingboro and Floyd Whitaker of Highland, and No. 3 in the state, behind seniors Jamier Wright-Collins of JFK Paterson (6-9) and Foluso Adedeji of Weequahic (6-8).

Tomeo will see Adedeji, Smith and Robertson next weekend at the Group 1 state meet. 

(An aside – in most modern-day track results you can easily get any field athlete’s series or progression. Hopefully, the NJSIAA in conjunction with the Bennett Center timers modernize their obsolete timing system so that information is available, like it is with virtually any non-NJSIAA meet. I’d love to know whether Tomeo took any attempts at 6-8 or 6-9 or simply shut down for the day. There’s no way to know. Getting real-time results was a big step [even though team scoring is never made available until a meet is over, which is silly]. But the technology and software is there to easily provide mid-race splits, relay splits, en-route times, throws full series marks, pole vault and high jump progressions, etc. It’s time to put it to use! [update – Thanks to Dennis Smyth for not only letting me know Aden took three tries at 6-8 but sending over the photo that appears at the top of this post!]

Absegami graduate Mariah Hubbard, a senior at Monmouth, won her fourth conference triple jump title Sunday.

Hubbard jumped 39-1 1/4 on her final attempt and won by nearly a foot in the triple jump at the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference indoor championships at the Armory.

https://results.armorytrack.com/meets/4042/events/198748/results

She also had jumps of 38-3 and 38-6 1/2. Second place was 38-2 1/4 so Hubbard had the three-best jumps of the competition.

Hubbard also won the 2017 indoor title (39-4), the 2019 indoor title (39-9 3/4) and the 2019 outdoor title (38-9 1/2).

Hubbard also placed fifth in the long jump with a 17-11 3/4 jump.

Hubbard owns the school record of 40-5 from last year’s indoor ECAC meet at Boston University. Her outdoor best is 39-8 at a meet this past April t the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Ian Moore, in only his second 800 as a collegian, won his first conference title.

Moore, a Monmouth freshman from Rancocas Valley, won a strategic 800 final Sunday at the Armory in 1:54.96, finishing at the front of a mass finish with teammate Louis DiLaurenzio, the defending champ, second in 1:54.99, Rider sophomore Donny Vineyard from Egg Harbor Township third in 1:55.04 and two more Rider half-milers — Mike Mazzei and Kevin Heredia — next in 1:55.46 and 1:55.94. 

So the first three finished in the span of less than 1-10th of a second, and the first five in less than a second.

Moore has run a lot faster — he ran 1:52.76 last weekend at Ocean Breeze — but conference championships are often strategic races that come down to who has the best kick on the final straight.

The top five finishers all ran right around 28.7 for the final lap.

Another Monmouth freshman from R.V., Micah Wood, who ran 1:53.46 last weekend, took the pack through the 400 in 57.1 and was in fourth with less than a lap to go before finishing seventh in 1:56.51.

Burlington Township graduate Jalen Jones won his first collegiate conference title Sunday with a big 400 PR at the MAAC Championships.

Jones, a Monmouth sophomore, ran 48.38 to win the 400 by over half a second at the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference meet at the Armory.

Watch his race from the backstretch, thanks to Burlington Township Track and Field’s Twitter account!

Jones’ previous indoor 400 PR was a 49.11 in the trials on Saturday. Before that it was 49.57 at Boston University last February. His outdoor PR is from last year’s MAAC Championships in West Long Branch, where he ran 49.21 in the trials. 

At Township, had PRs of 50.24 indoors and 48.84 outdoors, so this was an overall lifetime PR, and he did it on a 200-meter track with nobody close to him.

The odds of a tie are so remote in a meet with 10 events, 310 points to divvy up and a bunch of teams battling all day for points.

In fact, according to the NJSIAA sectional meet program, there had never been a team tie since the inception of indoor sectionals in 2008. 

That covers 13 years of meets in four Groups in four sections for boys and girls. That’s no ties in 412 sectional meets since 2008.

Until now.

Audubon and Collingswood, Colonial Conference rivals, Camden County rivals, schools located 2 1/2 miles apart, two towns separated only by a tiny swath of Oaklyn, finished deadlocked Sunday in the South Jersey Group 1 sectional meet at the Bubble in Toms River.

Audubon: 75
Collingswood: 75

Why have one champion when you can have two?

It was the first indoor sectional title for Audubon and the third in a row for Collingswood.

Follow along this titanic battle as the results came in!

400-METER DASH
Senior Emily Wallace gave Collingswood 10 points in the first event of the day with a win in 59.86, and junior Emily McGrath and senior Alivia Stocklin of Audubon took second and third in 61.99 and 62.28
Score after 1 event: Audubon 14, Collingswood 10 

HIGH JUMP
Audubon went 1-T4-6 for 14 points, with junior Sarah Parr earning the win at 4-10 and Stocklin and junior Emily Owens taking fifth and sixth at 4-6.
Score after 2 events: Audubon 28, Collingswood 10

1,600-METER RUN
Collingswood junior Sophie Steidle, who ran 5:21 last weekend, cruised to a 5:42.88 victory, winning by over 10 seconds
Score after 3 events: Audubon 28, Collingswood 20

SHOT PUT
Woodstown went 1-3, with junior Kara Knorr getting a three-foot win at 34-8. Audubon went 2-6 with senior Morgan Hearn (31-6) and junior Madelynn Spink (29-0), and Collingswood snared two points with junior Hailey Spencer throwing 29-4 1/2 for fifth.
Score after 4 events: Audubon 37, Collingswood 22

55-METER HURDLES
Collingswood’s Wallace recorded her second win of the day with a major PR of 9.21, and Audubon’s McGrath also PR’d at 9.42 for third.
Score after 5 events: Audubon 43, Collingswood 32

800-METER RUN
Four of the six medalists were from Audubon and Collingswood. Junior Sophie Steidle and freshman Lynnea Martinsen went 1-6 for Collingswood, Siegle running 2:26.64 and Martinsen 2:34.53. Audubon went 2-5 with Stocklin at 2:29.84 and McGrath 2:33.24.
Score after 6 events: Audubon 53, Collingswood 43

POLE VAULT
Audubon’s Parr cleared 11-0 for the win, and Collingswood junior Fioina Basewitz got over the bar at 10-0 for second.
Score after 7 events: Audubon 63, Collingswood 51

55-METER DASH
Junior Maria Muzzarelli of Buena, a first-year runner, got the close win over Collingswood’s Wallace, with both credited with a 7.51. Junior Kelly Loughlin picked up a fifth for Audubon.
Score after 8 events: Audubon 65, Collingswood 59

3,200-METER RUN
The tireless Steidle cruised to her third win of the day, this time in 12:36.56. Nobody else from Collingswood or Audubon placed.
Score after 9 events: Audubon 65, Collingswood 69

1,600-METER RELAY
Audubon got the win with a 4:14.56 to increase its total to 75, and Collingswood held off Haddon Heights by about half a second (4:20.83 to 4:21.39) to lock up third, add six points to its total and also finish with 75. What a meet!!!
Score after 10 events: Audubon 75, Collingswood 75

The South Jersey Group 4 sectional championships wasn’t decided on the track, it was decided on a computer screen where timing officials ruled that Rancocas Valley anchor Ryan Maggs had finished 1-100th of a second ahead of Millville’s anchor in the 1,600-meter relay.

Going into the race, the final event of the day, Rancocas Valley had 38 points and Jackson had 33 1/3 but the No. 1 seed and heavy favorite in the 4-by-4.

A relay win would increase Jackson’s point total to 43 1/3, which meant R.V. needed six points – third place – to win its first indoor sectional title.

With a lap to go, R.V. was well back of third, but junior anchor Ryan Maggs was gaining.

At the line? Too close to call.

It came down to this:

That’s Maggs on the outside, and remember that’s a photo of a photo that was on a pier of paper, so it’s probably not the best picture, but it was clear to the timers that R.V. had gotten to the line before Millville.

That gave R.V. the six points it needed to outscore Jackson by two-thirds of a point

Rancocas Valley: 44
Jackson: 43 1/3

3:26.79 … Jackson
3:29.54 … Kingsway
3:31.16 … Rancocas Valley
3:31.17 … Millville
3:35.04 … Toms River North
3:35.07 … Washington Township

Junior Rahmir Patterson, junior Gabriel Wilson and senior Gavin Farrell ran the first three 4-by-4 legs, setting up Mags, a 2:01 half-miler who has never run an open indoor 400.

The 3:31.16 was a season-best for R.V.

R.V. is only the fourth South Jersey school to win South Jersey Group 4 since indoor sectionals began in 2008. Egg Harbor Township had won six of the last eight titles, Washington Township won in 2009 and 2011, Lenape won in 2014 and the other titles belonged to Central Jersey schools – Toms River East, Toms River North and Trenton once each.

Let’s take a look at how R.V. got into position to win the team title:

MIEKEL HOUSE
House posted the third-fastest qualifying time in the prelims at 6.70, but he ran 6.52 in the final to edge Egg Harbor’s Ahmad Brock, who ran 6.58 for the win. House ran within 2-100ths of a second of the Group 4 meet record of 6.50, set in 2010 by Absegami’s Rasheed Grande.

JORDAN FLOYD
Floyd matched his high jump PR of 6-2 to earn the win, and lead a 1-2 R.V. sweep. Floyd’s best events may be the triple jump (44-7 1/2) and long jump (20-8), but since they aren’t contested in New Jersey, he won a sectional title in his next-best event!

TAHMIR CLARK
Clark’s best event is definitely the long jump. He surpassed 22 feet for the first time at Ocean Breeze last weekend. But he cleared 6-0 and crucially did it on fewer misses than another jumper, which earned him second and six points instead of four.

RAHMIR PATTERSON
Patterson, a junior, ran 52.57 in an unseeded heat, and that time bumped three runners in the seeded heat and earned the junior sixth place overall. Without that point, R.V. does not win the team title.

DANIEL DAYRELL
Egg Harbor’s Anthony Vazquez, the Easterns champ, ran away with the final in 7.49, but Darrell, an R.V. senior, took second in 7.70 for eight huge points.

JONAH WOOD
Another crucial point that could have made the difference between a team title and no team title. Wood PR’d with a 44-8 throw for sixth place.

Kingsway placed third with 34 points, and the next six teams were all within six points in an incredibly competitive and balanced group: Millville 28, Toms River North 27, Cherry Hill East 27, Egg Harbor Twp. 22 1/3, Southern Regional 22, Cherokee 22.

There’s no section in the state as competitive as South Jersey Group 4.