Cherokee senior Patrick Ditmars and junior Nick Kuenkel ran two of the three-fastest times Friday at the Battle at Ocean County Park in Lakewood.

Ditmars ran the fastest time of the day, covering the 5,000-meter course in 15:19, and winning the senior class race by one second over Elizabeth’s Lucas Reguinho, a 9:10 two-miler last spring.

Kuenkel ran 15:29 and won the junior race by nearly half a minute over Maan Patel of Monroe Township, who was second in 15:55. Robert Poplau was 6th in the junior race in 16:23.

Liam Tindall ran 16:42 and placed 4th in the sophomore race, and Anthony DiBatista took 10th in 17:14.

In the freshman race, run over 3,200 meters, Cherokee’s Logan Bromley placed 6th in 11:51.

In MileSplit’s merge, Cherokee scored 111 points, behind only Ridge, which scored 57. Cherry Hill East was 7th of 69 schools, and Shawnee 10th.

Shawnee’s Eli Mackey ran 9th in the junior race in 16:30

Gobi Thurairajah, a Rider junior from Egg Harbor Township High School, continued his outstanding start to the 2022 XC season with a 4th-place finish in the Jasper Invitational Saturday.

Thurairajah placed 5th out of 114 runners, covering the 8,000-meter Twin Ponds on the Farm course in Montgomery, N.Y., in 25:31.

Thurairajah set an 8,000 all-course PR, breaking his former best time of 25:47 from last week in a meet in Latham, N.Y. His 8,000 PR coming into this season was 26:17 from last year’s Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships in Orlando, Fla.

Monmouth, ranked 12th in the NCAA Division 1 Mid-Atlantic Region by the USTFCCCA, won the team title 31-50 over Rider, with Fordham 3rd with 59 points with sophomores Stone Caraccio of Kingsway and Sebastien Reed of Pitman placing 9th and 10th overall, both in 25:49.

Delsea senior Lillie Widmer was the overall winner with one of the fastest times ever at DREAM Park, and Clearview packed its five scorers in the top seven overall Saturday in the championship race at the South Jersey Shootout in Logan Township.

Widmer covered the 5,000-meter course in 18:34, 11th-fastest in the five years since the DREAM Park course was first used. Abigail Waddington of Clearview also dipped under 19 minutes with an 18:49 for 2nd place.

That 18:34 is a nearly two-minute all-course PR over 5,000 meters for Widmer, whose previous fastest 5K according to her MileSplit database was a 20:32 in a batch meet last September at Cumberland Regional.

Clearview, ranked No. 7 in the state, went 2-3-5-6-7, but for team scoring purposes finished 1-2-4-5-6 for 18 points, topping 2nd-place Moorestown 18-58.

Also scoring for Clearview were senior Abigail Kotran [3rd in 19:08], junior Margaret Wisniewski [5th in 19:54], junior Allison Roes [6th in 19:56] and senior Aubrey Donahue [7th in 20:08].

Highland senior Grace Wassell broke up the Clearview pack in 4th place in 19:19.

Also in the top 10 were Williamstown senior Alexa Fisher [8th in 20:19], Sterling junior Cara Coppolino [9th in 20:50] and Haddon Township junior Ella Sherwin [10th in 20:58].

Moorestown didn’t have a finisher in the top 10 but packed all seven runners between 11th and 27th (and between 8th and 17th in team, scoring), with junior Julia Brock leading the way in 11th overall in 21:06.

Isabella Leak turned in her second straight top-10 performance for Monmouth Saturday, placing 4th of 87 runners at the Jasper Fall Invitational.

Leak ran 22:23 over the 6,000-meter course at Twin Ponds at the Farm in Montgomery, Orange County, N.Y. That’s 18:39 5,000 pace for another 1,000 meters.

Leak, a sophomore from Egg Harbor Township, ran 4:41.70 for 1,500 meters as a freshman last spring. Her 22:23 is an all-course 6,000 PR, 20 seconds faster than she ran at Paul Short at Lehigh last fall.

Monmouth finished first in the eight-team race with 25 points, going 3-4-5-6-7 and packing its five scorers in 16 seconds. Leak was Monmouth’s No. 2 runner, finishing four seconds behind sophomore Marisa Kilgarrif from Council Rock South in Richboro, Pa.

Monmouth was ranked 12th in the initial NCAA Division 1 Mid-Atlantic Region rankings.

Rancocas Valley senior Ryan Smith finished 225 meters ahead of the field Saturday at the Ray Hoagland Invitational.

Hoagland covered the 5,000-meter course at the Rancocas Valley Sports Complex in Eastampton Township in 16:35.

That’s 57 seconds faster than he ran on the same course to open his junior year. Smith went on to place 8th at the Group 4 sectionals at Delsea.

Smith’s time is fastest ever on the R.V. course by a Rancocas Valley runner. Andre Faigal ran 16:43 last fall when he placed 3rd at the County Open.

Oliver Adler set the course record of 16:13 at the 2018 Ray Hoagland Invite.

Washington Township teammates Hunter Bostwick, a sophomore, and Aaron Kolosowsky, a junior, finished in a virtual tie at 17:19, with Bostwick officially credited with 2nd place.

Eastern junior Owen Karsch [4th in 17:21] and R.V. senior Dylan Selby [5th in 17:41] also ran sub-18.

Washington Township edged Rancocas Valley 68-81 for the team title, with Camden Catholic just behind with 83 points and Eastern 4th with 98.

Joining Bostwick and Kolosowsky in the Minutemen’s scoring group were junior Wade Olivio [13th], junior Adrian Gonzalez [21st] and sophomore Jason Reinherz [32nd].

Triton graduate Dennis Fortuna, a freshman at Penn, began his collegiate career Friday with a terrific performance at the Main Line Invitational at Haverford College.

Fortuna was the Quakers’ first finisher, taking 15th overall – 11th in team scoring – and covering the 4.0-mile course in 20:08, which is 15:36 pace for 5,000 meters.

Fortuna finished only seven seconds behind Villanova’s Sean Dolan from Hopewell Valley, a 3:56.39 miler earlier this year.

At Triton last year, Fortuna won South Jersey and state Group 3 titles and placed 8th at the Meet of Champions with a 15:46 over the challenging Holmdel County Park course.

Villanova won with 20 points, and Penn finished 4th in team scoring with 94 points.

In the women’s race, Sterling’s Jessie Klenk was Stockton’s No. 2 runner, covering the 3-mile course in 19:17 and placing 20th, and Eastern’s Kiersten Clem was Stockton’s No. 4 runner in 23rd.

Stockton placed its five scorers in a 24-second span and placed 5th overall, just one point behind Swarthmore, which is ranked No. 1 in the USTFCCCA NCAA Division 3 Metro Region rankings. Stockton moved up from No. 4 to No. 3 last week.

Schalick graduate Samuel Gerstenbacher, who lowered his steeplechase time to 8:38.94 last spring, raced Saturday for the first time since May and won the Blue Jay Challenge at Elizabethtown, his alma mater.

The race pits Elizabeth alumni vs. the current team and for the first time in race history the alumni came out with the team title, beating the current team 25-32.

Gerstenbacher covered the 4,500-meter (2.8-mile) layout at the Elizabethtown Solar Array Course in 13:49, which is 15:21 pace for 5,000 meters and finished 55 meters ahead of former teammate Christian Schaaf, who ran 14:14.38 for 5,000 meters on the track last year.

A total of 35 runners competed – 18 current runners and 17 alums. The alums went 1-2-3-7-16, and the current team went 4-5-6-8-9.

Gerstenbacher is the fastest steeplechaser in South Jersey history. He ranked No. 36 among U.S. men last year but only 16 seconds out of the top 10.

Gerstenbacher only ran two steeples this past outdoor season but in the second he ran 8:38.94 at Track Night NYC at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island in New York on May 20.

That broke the South Jersey record of 8:46.16 set a week early by Cinnaminson graduate and Duke grad student Mike Ungvarsky, who had just run 8:46.16 at the ACC Championships in Durham, N.C.

Abigail Waddington of Clearview edged Lillie Widmer of Delsea by half a second to win the Senior Class race at the 26th annual Cherokee Challenge Saturday.

Waddington ran 12:05.58 over 3,200 meters at Cherokee, and Widmer was two meters back in 12:06.02.

Cinnaminson’s Stephanie Renouf [12:11], Haddon Township’s Meghan Lex [12:14] and Egg Harbor Township’s Lindsay Taylor [12:14] took the 3rd through 5th spots, making it a 1-2-3-4-5 South Jersey sweep.

Waddington also won the junior class race last year. Widmer was 20th and ran more than a minute faster this year. Renouf ran 20 seconds faster, Lex ran 45 seconds faster and Taylor ran a 1:40 faster.

Ava Severino of Haddon Heights placed 8th in 12:27, and Abigail Kotran of Clearview was 9th in 12:32.

Cornell’s Katy Storti, a senior from Cinnaminson and Bishop Eustace, placed 5th out of 68 runners Saturday in the Fordham Fiasco at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, N.Y.

Storti covered the 5,000-meter layout at the legendary course in 19:30 and finished just 27 seconds behind Elvira Bredin of Temple, who covered the challenging course in 19:03.

What makes this race a fiasco? I guess the fact that the results don’t indicate what school any of the runners are from. Have you ever seen this before?

Fordham Fiasco results.

But it looks like Storti was Cornell’s 3rd finisher. Team scoring? You’re guess is as good as mine. It’s not listed anywhere in these results, and I don’t have the time to start figuring out where every runner is from and adding up points!

But either way, a strong race for Storti, who ran 17:34.75 for 5,000 meters on the track at the Armory in February and was on the 2019 Cornell XC team that placed 2nd in the NCAA Division 1 Northeast Regional in Amherst, N.Y., and raced in the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Ind.

Woodbury’s Peyton Shute shattered the 10-year-old course record on his way to a win in the junior class race Saturday morning at the 26th annual Cherokee Challenge.

Shute ran 9:24 – 9:24.49 exactly – and broke the course record on the 3,200-meter layout of 9:26.0, set in 2012 by Cherokee’s Shawn Wilson. Avery Keith of Westfield took 2nd in 9:42.

Shute ran 4:14.89 and 9:15.76 last spring and was 6th in the Meet of Champions. He was second in the sophomore class race last year in 9:55.

Cherokee High has been good for Shute. Last April, he ran 9:15.76 at Cherokee, the fastest 3,200 by a South Jersey sophomore in 14 years.

Here’s a look at all the sub-9:40 times in course history:
9:24 … Peyton Shute [Woodbury], 2022
9:26 … Shawn Wilson [Cherokee], 2012
9:27 … Luke Petela [Haddon Twp.], 2014
9:28 … Miles Schoedler [Ocean City], 2010
9:30 … Louis Corgliano [Hammonton], 2013
9:31 … Chris Platt [Haddonfield], 2002
9:32 … Chris Romero [Voorhees], 2017
9:33 … John Vitez [Haddonfield], 2009
9:33 … Ben Potts [Haddonfield], 2010
9:33 … Luke Johnson [West Windsor-Plainsboro North], 2019
9:37 … Robby Andrews [Manalapan], 2008
9:38 … Marc Pelerin [Cherokee], 2001
9:38 … Nick Costello [Delsea], 2012