With a top seven comprised entirely of South Jersey high school graduates, Rowan recorded a team title Saturday in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Cross Country Championships at Fairmount Park’s Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia.

Sophomore Anthony Faust from Bishop Eustace and freshman Colin Patterson from Haddon Heights both placed in the top 10 for the Profs, who outscored 2nd-place Wilmington (Delaware) 49-63 for the team title. Stockton (82) and Georgian Court (93) placed 3rd and 4th in the 14-team competition.

Rowan is ranked 4th in the USATFCCC Metro Region and Stockton is 6th.

Faust ran 28:11.9 in hot, muggy conditions over five miles at Belmont to place 3rd and Patterson ran 28:22.4 to place 6th.

Also in Rowan’s top seven were freshman Joshua Jackson [14th in 28:54.7], sophomore Scott Hubbard [16th in 28:57.6], sophomore Joshua Cason [18th in 29:00], junior Sean Eisenhower [19th in 29:04.1] and sophomore Sean Hice [22nd in 29:15.5].

Sophomore Dalton Culleny of Cedar Creek was Stockton’s 5th runner and sophomore Tyler Wells from Audubon was the Ospreys’ 6th runner.

Wilmington was led by junior Dan Wyshinski from Pennsville in his first race since last year’s NCAA Division 2 East Regionals in Garden City, N.Y. Wyshinski placed 4th in 28:13.2. Freshman Joel Oquendo from Pennsauken, in his first collegiate race, was Wilmington’s 6th runner, taking 33rd overall in 29:39.

For Georgian Court of Lakewood, senior Xavier Seals of Woodstown placed 24th and was the Lions’ 3rd finisher.

Freshman Anas Bensaoud from Clearview, a transfer from SUNY Stony Brook, led Rowan College Gloucester County in 26th place overall in 29:22 in his first college XC meet. Bensaoud ran track last spring and was a double All-America at the NJCAA Division 3 Championships in Utica, N.Y.

Haddonfield graduate Tobias Janssen, a George Washington freshman, placed 5th overall at the Navy Cross Country Invitational Saturday morning in Annapolis, Md.

Janssen ran 16:39.84 over 5,000 meters and was GWU’s 3rd finisher overall. He finished only 22 seconds behind overall winner Owen Ahten of Navy.

It appears that the 5K race was for freshmen, and upperclassmen ran in a separate 8,000-meter race.

Janssen ran 4:17.57 and 9:23.20 at Haddonfield and was 5th at the state Group 2 cross country meet at Holmdel, which Haddonfield won.

Navy edged George Washington 25-32 for the team title.

Peyton Shute won the Senior Race by over 100 meters and tied the course record Saturday at the 26th annual Cherokee Challenge.

Shute covered the 3,200-meter course in 9:26.13, finishing about 24 seconds ahead of 2nd-place Matthew Lucas of Monroe Township.

The course record is listed as 9:26 – with no fractions – by Cherokee’s Shawn Wilson in 2012. The official results from 2012 show none of the times with 10ths so Wilson and Shute will share the course record at 9:26.

Shute was the state Group 1 champ at 800, 1,600 and 3,200 meters last spring and placed 11th at the Meet of Champions in XC with a 16:05 at Holmdel.

Delsea’s Matthew Littlehales ran 10:13.0 to win the Sophomore Race over Gavin Leffler of Tatnall School in Wilmington, who was 2nd in 10:15.5. Matthew Littlehales’ older brother Andrew won the Senior Race in 2021 in 9:47.

Other runners under 10:30 Saturday included Collingswood’s Elijah Forrest [9:51.9, 3rd in Senior Race], Paul VI’s Will Mrozinski [7th in Senior Race, 10:04.3], Williamstown’s Dylan Saber [10th in Junior Race, 10:10.7], Williamstown’s Dominic Burgio [3rd in Sophomore Race, 10:18.0], Haddon Heights’ Reggie Hernandez [11th in Junior Race, 10:19.7], Audubon’s Aiden Williams [12th in Senior Race, 10:21.5], Moorestown’s Peter Simpson [4th in Sophomore Race, 10:22.9] and Owen Dybus of Haddon Township [16th in Senior Race, 10:27.6].

Salesianum of Wilmington won the boys overall title with a combined 30 points from their top finisher in each of the four varsity races. Paul VI was the top South Jersey school with 82 points. Shawnee had the lowest score among South Jersey schools in the combined boys-girls scoring with 318 points (150 boys, 168 girls). Conestoga of Berwyn, Pa., was the overall combined winner with 153.

Here’s a look at the 10-fastest runners in course history [and also the top 10 South Jersey times]:

9:26 … Shawn Wilson [Cherokee], 2012 [Senior Race]
9:26.13 … Peyton Shute [Woodbury], 2023 [Senior Race
9:17.69 … Luke Petela [Haddon Township], 2014 [Senior Race]
9:28 … Miles Schoedler [Ocean City], 2010 [Senior Race]
9:29.36 … Andrew Marston [Conestoga, Pa.], 2014 [Senior Race]
9:30.59 … Louis Corgliano [Hammonton], 2013 [Senior Race]
9:32.93 … Chris Romero [Voorhees], 2017 [Senior Race]
9:33 … Jon Vitez [Haddonfield], 2009 [Senior Race]
9:33 … Ben Potts [Haddonfield], 2009 [Senior Race]
9:36 …….. Vitez, 2008 [Junior Race]
9:33.26 … Luke Johnson [West Windsor-Plainsboro North [Senior Race]
9:38 … Nick Costello [Delsea], 2012 [Senior]
9:40 … Roberte Rawls [Triton], 2010 [Senior]
9:40 …….. Corgliano, 2012 [Junior]
9:41.51 … Sean MacPherson [Sterling], 2014 [Senior Race]

Gillian Lovett became Mainland Regional’s first Cherokee Challenge winner in eight years Saturday when she won the senior race at the 26th annual Challenge on a hot, muggy morning that wasn’t conducive to fast times.

Lovett ran 11:38.5 over 3.2 kilometers, finishing just ahead of Cherokee’s Kerry O’Day, who was 2nd in 11:44.4.

The only other Cherokee Challenge winner in Cherokee history is Alyssa Aldridge, who won the freshman race in 11:58 in 2014 and the sophomore race in 11:34 in 2015.

Despite the difficult conditions, Lovett’s time was fastest in the Senior Race since 2019, when Maddy Kopec of Red Bank Catholic ran 11:34..

Lovett’s time was fastest by any South Jersey runner in any race since Aldridge’s 11:34 in 2015 and fastest in the senior race since Shelby Cain of Haddonfield ran 11:33 in 2013.

As a junior, Lovett placed 5th at the state Group 3 meet with a 19:27 at Holmdel County Park.

In addition to Lovett and O’Day, other South Jersey girls under 12 minutes Saturday included Ocean City’s Maeve Smith [3rd in Junior Race in 11:41.7], Mainland’s Sofia Day [4th in Junior Race in 11:53.6] and Williamstown’s Alyssa Boucher [6th in Senior Race in 11:57.3].

Mainland finished 2^nd in the overall girls team scoring competition and was the top South Jersey school with 53 points with top-10 finishers in three of the four races [Cecilia Foreman 9^th in freshman race, Day 4^th in junior race, Lovett 1^st in senior race]. Mainland’s top soph finisher was Macie Gannon.

Sadie Krueger of Northern Burlington Middle School won the Middle School race with a 8:06.4 over 2,400 meters, only eight seconds off the middle school record of 7:58 set by Haddonfield’s Briana Gess.

Cherokee’s Ethan Wechsler raced to a top-10 finish Friday at the Harry Groves Spiked Shoe Invitational at Penn State.

Wechsler, a Syracuse junior, covered the 5.2-mile course in State College in 25:44.8, which is 24:45 pace for the more conventional five-mile or 8,000-meter course.

Wechsler was Syracuse’s seventh runner, and the Orangemen scored a near-perfect 16 points in winning the team title 16-59 over Pitt. The host Nittany Lions were 3rd with 71 points.

Syracuse packed its first seven runners in 13.7 seconds. Senior Perry Mackinson was the overall winner in 25:31.1.

Syracuse is ranked No. 11 in NCAA Division 1 by the USATFCCCA (USA Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association) and No. 1 in the Northeast Region.

Moorestown’s Kate Inglis, a junior at Catholic in Washington, D.C., placed 6th out of more than 50 runners Friday in the Mount St. Mary’s 5K Duals in Emmitsburg, Md.

Inglis ran 19:09.8 over the 5,000-meter course and was Catholic’s first runner across the finish line. That 19:09.8 is a collegiate 5K PR for Inglis, whose previous fastest all-course time over 5,000 meters was 19:57.0 in September 2021 in a meet at the Kernstown Battlefield in Winchester, Va.

Catholic placed 3rd with 84 points, behind George Washington (15) and Howard (79).

Inglis was the steeplechase champion and 1,500 runner-up this past spring at the Landmark Conference Championships at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., and 3,000 runner-up at the indoor championships in Selinsgrove, Pa. She was 4th in the Landmark Conference XC meet last fall in Baltimore.

At Moorestown, Inglis was the South Jersey Group 3 sectional champ at 3,200 meters in 2021 at Delsea.

Freshman Donnie Jellig from Haddonfield was Franklin & Marshall’s 1st finisher and 2nd overall Saturday in the F&M Open.

Jellig ran 16:41.0 over the 5,000-meter course at Franklin & Marshall’s Baker Campus Fields in Mannheim Township, just outside Lancaster. He placed 2nd overall to F&M alum Mike Maglione, a 2023 graduate.

Jellig was the top finisher among 13 F&M runners in his first collegiate race.

At Haddonfield, Jellig placed 12th last fall in the state Group 2 cross country meet at Holmdel and was the Bulldogs’ 3rd finisher as they won their 20th state title.

Delsea’s Andrew Littlehales opened his season with a big race for Army Saturday at the Maine Black Bear Invitational.

Littlehales, a sophomore, placed 6th out of 65 runners, covering the 8,000-meter course at Penobscot Valley Country Club in Orono in 25:05.8.

Littlehales was Army’s No. 4 runner in a 26-56 win over New Hampshire, with Maine 3rd also with 56 points.

Last fall, Littlehales only raced twice for Army and had an 8,000 PR of 26:37.8 from a race in Van Cortlandt Park.

At Delsea, ran 4:17.71, 9:10.39 and 15:04.81 on the track and was 3rd at the state Group 3 XC meet at Holmdel in the fall of 2021.

Cinnaminson’s Austin Gabay edged Duke teammate Rory Cavan to win the Friday Night Lights Elon XC Opener Friday night at Elon’s home course.

Gabay ran 17:38.5 over 6,000 meters and finished 1-10th of a second ahead of Cavan, who ran 17:38.6. Duke packed its first five finishers within six seconds of each other and out-scored 2nd-place High Point (N.C.) 15-65, with East Carolina 3rd with 91 points.

This was Gabay’s first collegiate victory in any race.

Gabay’s previous all-course PR over a 6,000-meter course was 18:09.2 last September at the Virginia Invitational in Earlysville, Va.

Gabay has track PRs of 4:06.70 and 14:17.98.

Duke is ranked No. 5 in the NCAA Division 1 Southeast Region by the USTFCCCA, behind ACC schools North Carolina, Virginia and North Carolina State and Eastern Kentucky out of the Atlantic Cun Conference.

Senior Holly Chambers from Kingsway and freshman Payton Falkenstein from Burlington Townshop were East Stroudsburg’s 3rd and 4th runners Friday as the Warriors opened the season with a team championship at the Adelphi Panthers Invitational.

Chambers placed 7th overall in 19:42.9 and Falkenstein was 10th in 20:05.4 over the 5,000-meter course at Bethpage Park in Old Bethpage, N.Y.

East Stroudsburg outscored Kutztown 34-62 to win the team title, and host Adelphi was 3rd with 79. It was

It was the first race in an East Stroudsburg uniform for both South Jersey natives.

Chambers is a transfer from Ursinus, and this was her first race in track or XC in 10 months – since she was 12th for Ursinus at last year’s Centennial Conference Championships at Haverford.

Falkenstein didn’t run cross country at Burlington Township, so this was her first competitive XC race on any level anywhere. She ran track and placed 5th in the County Open at 3,200 meters last spring at Northern Burlington.