Sophomore Emma Klouchek ran 16:22 over 4,000 meters on the hallowed Van Cortlandt Park course and the Seneca girls placed fifth in a very competitive field of mainly New York schools Saturday at the Xavier Invitational in the Bronx.

Klouchek placed seventh overall, leading the way for Seneca. Junior Morgan Hough [25th in 17:31], junior Chelsea Richards [40th in 18:08] and seniors Reilly Ritter [56th in 18:37] and Kayla Handt  [58th in 18:39] also scored for the Golden Eagles.

Notre Dame Academy of Staten Island won the team title with 57 points, followed by Ward Melville of East Setauket, N.Y. [72], Washingtonville (N.Y.) [105] and South Side of Rockville Center, N.Y. [129]. Seneca scored 179.

 

Cinnaminson’s Austin Gabay ran the seventh-fastest time in course history Saturday and placed second in the junior boys race at the Thompson Park Class Meet in Jamesburg and Monroe Township.

Gabay ran 16:09, taking second to Liam Murphy of Allentown, who ran 15:39 and broke the course record of 15:56, set in 2011 by Cullen Davis of North Brunswick.

The previous-fastest time by a South Jersey runner at Thompson Park was a 16:29 by Ben Woodward of Highland last weekend.

Here are the top 10 times in course history:

15:39.37 … Liam Murphy, Allentown [2018]
15:44.92 … Vedang Lad, West Windsor [2018]
15:56.41 … Cullen Davis, North Brunswick [2011]
16:01.69 … Khari Bowen, Monroe Twp. [2011]
16:06.42 … Billy Hill, Franklin Twp. [2017]
16:08.20 … John McGovern, Somerville [2018]
16:09.70 … Austin Gabay, Cinnaminson [2018]
16:11.30 … Jonathan Torres, Hamilton North [2018]
16:15.00 … Paul Ehmann, Mendham [2015]
16:20.07 … Kyle Davis, North Brunswick [2011]

Gabay was a 4:17 miler last spring and placed fifth in the state Group 2 meet at 1,600 meters.

 

Stockton packed its five scorers in a 35-second span and ran away with the team title at its own invitational on Saturday morning.

Sophomore Daniel Do, senior Joe D’Amico, sophomore Cooper Knorr and senior Christian Mele placed 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th in 27:11 through 27:32 over 8,000 meters on Stockton’s campus in Galloway Township, and soph Kyle Navalance took 11th in 27:46.

Stockton finished with 33 points, nearly half of second-place The College of New Jersey. Jefferson of Philly – the combined program of Philadelphia University and Thomas Jefferson – was third with 76.

Do and Mele are South Jersey alums, Do from Absegami and Mele from Cherry Hill East. D’Amico ran at Central Regional, Knorr at Manalapan and Navalance at Toms River North.

Stockton’s five scorers were backed up by sophomores Stephen Conte of Paul VI, Andrew Fellin of Monroe Township and Nick Toth of Spotswood, who placed 17th, 18th and 19th in the field of 112 runners.

Three of TCNJ’s top four runners are South Jersey alums: junior Chris Coombs of Burlington Township placed 10th in 27:41, sophomore Noah Preihs was 12th in 27:49 and freshman Jack Ennis of Shawnee was 15th in 28:03.

For Jefferson, freshman Tyler Savage of Timber Creek placed 30th.

Pitman junior Sebastien Reed tore apart the Stockton University 5,000-meter course in 15:43, beating the field by about 200 meters in winning the varsity boys race at the Osprey Invitational Friday afternoon in Galloway Township.

Reed won by 37 seconds over senior Jensen Nunez of Pleasantville, who took second, helping Pleasantville place fifth in team scoring.

Washington Township edged Ocean City 67-72 to win the team title, with Williamstown (111) and West Deptford (141) giving Gloucester County three of the top four spots.

Pitman was eighth with all underclassmen scoring, and Reed was at the head of the pack, running a personal best for 5,000 meters on any course. His previous PR was a 15:59 when he placed sixth at the Tri-County Championships last fall at Cumberland Regional.

Reed has run 4:30 for 1,600 meters and 9:38 for 3,200 meters. He was sectional 3,200 champ last winter at the Bennett Center and went on to place fourth at the state Group 1 meet.

He similarly won Group 1 sectionals in XC last fall before taking fifth at states at Holmdel. He’s the top returning runner from that state Group 1 race.

 

Senior Brooke Farr was the difference maker for the Ocean City girls Friday in a dramatic team victory over one of the state’s top-ranked teams.

Farr was Ocean City’s fourth runner and placed 12th overall, finishing eight spots (six in team scoring) ahead of Red Bank Catholic’s fourth runner and helping the Red Raiders to a 56-60 win over RBC in the Osprey Invite girls race at Stockton University in Galloway Township.

After three runners, Red Bank Catholic had a 15-16 lead. RBC’s fifth runner finished one place — and less than a second — ahead of Ocean City’s fifth runner. Red Bank is ranked No. 12 in New Jersey. Ocean City is No. 1 in South Jersey.

So the fourth runners really determined this team title, and Farr ran 20:07 to lead Ocean City to the triumph.

That is the fastest 5,000 meters Farr has ever run on any course. Her previous PR was a 20:27 at sectionals last year at Delsea.

Ocean City had four of the first 12 finishers, with sophomore Alexa Palmieri second in 18:49, junior Casey McLees fourth in 19:09, junior Rebecca Millar 10th in 19:55, Farr 12th and sophomore Isabella Padula completing the scoring with a 31st-place finish in 21:40.

Ocean City went 2-4-10-12-28 with non-scorers eliminated.

Red Bank Catholic went 1-6-8-18-27.

Mainland was third with 74 points, including four in the top 20.

There were 134 girls in the varsity race, 19 complete teams and runners from a total of 26 schools.

Maddy Kopec of RBC was the overall girls winner in 18:41.

Other South Jersey girls in the top 10 included senior Angela Bannan of Holy Spirit [34rd in 18:59], freshman Alyssa Turner of Mainland [7th in 19:33] and senior Briana Hagerty of Pitman [9th in 19:52].

Juniors Laney and Marissa Guido also raced for Ocean City, placing 41st and 42nd in 22:00.

Ocean City also went 1-4-6-13-15-22-28-33-34 in the JV race, with junior Reghan Handley finishing first overall in 18:41 over 4,032 meters.

Led by overall winner Chris Spisak, Cherokee packed all seven of its runners in the top 16 and recorded a commanding win in the Varsity B race at the Suffern Invitational Saturday at Bear Mountain State Park in Rockland County, N.Y.

Spisak, a junior, led from start to finish, covering the hilly three-mile course in 15:38.4 and winning by about 35 meters over Ryan Guerci of Nanuet.

Junior Ethan Wechsler took fourth in 16:13 and junior Chase Miller was ninth in 16:40. Not far back was a pack of four Cherokee runners in a row — sophomores Brett Shea and Nico Grilli, junior Michael Gavio and senior David Jackson took 13th through 16th in a six-second span from 16:51 through 16:57.

In team points, Cherokee went 1-4-8-12-13-14-15. Cherokee could have scored all seven runners while every other school scored five and the Chiefs still would have won the team title.

Cherokee had its seventh runner across the line before anybody else had its fourth runner finish.

Cherokee finished with a 38-82 margin of victory over Mount Academy of Esopus, N.Y., near Poughkeepsie.

The Chiefs also won the JV A race, with junior Robert Hackney, sophomore Dylan Odud and junior Tyler Jackson sweeping the top three places in 17:28, 17:29 and 17:34.

Senior Michael Moraschi placed eighth in 18:07, junior Matthew Campbell and sophomore Bryan Lafferty ran 12th and 13th in 18:16 and 18:19 and Tyler Ortiz made it seven Chiefs in the top 20 with a 17th-place finish in 18:56 out of more than 200 runners.

Cherokee outscored second-place Suffern 26-50 to win the JV A team title.

Cherokee took sixth in the freshman race, led by Aiden Dickinson in 29th place in 10:52 over a 2,400-meter course.

The Haddonfield boys packed its five scorers within 30 seconds and raced to a commanding win Saturday in the Varsity A race at the Regis Invitational over 4,000 meters at hallowed Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

Senior Greg Eisenhower led the way for the Bulldogs, placing third in 13:01, with junior Martin Riddell fifth in 13:08 and then senior Derek Gess, junior Stephen Kasko and senior Griffin Weiner taking seventh through ninth in 13:28, 13:29 and 13:31.

Haddonfield beat second-place Archbishop Molloy 32-80, and 31 is a very low score in an invitational with 14 schools. This is some exceptional running by Haddonfield, ranked No. 2 in New Jersey.

Haddonfield added four more runners in the top 16, giving the Bulldogs nine of the first 16 finishers.

The Bulldogs had nine runners across the line before anybody else’s third runner finished!!!

Junior Grayson Fasolo [11th in 13:32], senior Sean Campiglia [12th in 13:38], senior Ethan Spellmehyer [13th in 13:46] and junior Andrew Gostovich [16th in 13:53] gave Haddonfield a ridiculous nine runners in the span of 52 seconds on a challenging course.

Haddonfield averaged 13:20 per scorer, 40 seconds faster than Molloy.

How deep is Haddonfield?

The Bulldogs also went 1-2 in the sophomore race, with Caleb Clevenger edging John Hurly 14:21 to 14:25, and Tobias Janssen and Andrew Sullivan went 1-8 in the freshman are, with Janssen running 8:52 over the 2,500-meter course and Sullivan 9:28.

Haddonfield is ranked No. 18 in the U.S. according to MileSplit.

Full results from Vanny should be posted here soon.

Shawnee junior Isabella Turner scorched the 5,000-meter course at Dream Park in Logan Township just outside Glassboro with a 17:52 Saturday to win the girls stud race at the South Jersey Shootout.

This is a new course so there’s nothing to compare her time with, but 17:52 on any 5,000-meter course is ridiculous, and that could stand for quite a while as the course record.

Turner and junior teammate Claire Hauser ran 1-2 for Shawnee in the girls stud race, which includes the No. 1, 2 and 3 runners for each team. Turner won by about 450 meters over Hauser, who finished about a minute and a half behind her teammate.

Only three other girls – sophomore Alexa Palmieri of Ocean City [19:34], senior Angela Bannan of Holy Spirit [19:46] and freshman Alyssa Turner of Mainland Regional [19:59] – broke 20 minutes.

Turner ran 5:02 and 10:55 last year, placing fifth at states in the 1,600 and eighth in the Meet of Champions in the 3,200.

Her fastest previous 5,000 time on record was an 18:22 on the super-charged flat Delsea course at Group 4 sectionals last year, which she won. She went on to place eighth at states with a Holmde career-best 19:17 and 24th at Meet of Champions in 19:20.

The meet was held in previous years on Rowan’s own 5,000-meter course, where the course record of 18:22 was set in 2015 by Mainland Regional’s Alyssa Aldridge.

Team scoring at the Shootout is determined by the overall place of each school’s top two runners in the 1-2-3 race and top three places in the 4-5-6-7 race. It’s a great way to measure depth over frontrunners, and Ocean City won Saturday by going 1-9-10 in the 4-5-6-7 race and 3-7 in the stud race for 30 points.

Palmieri and junior Casey McLees [20:15] went 3-7 in the stud race. Junior Rebecca Millar won the 4-5-6-7 girls race in 21:09, with sophomore Isabella Padula and junior Laney Guido in ninth and 10th in 22:40 and 22:43.

Official team scoring had Ocean City with 30, Mainland with 40, Shawnee at 49 and Seneca with 60. Scoring traditionally, Ocean City wins 63-67 over Mainland, with Shawnee [103] and Seneca [108] third and fourth.

Merged individual results are here. Team scoring is here. Full menu of results is here.

Delaware Valley University junior Josh Loew, a graduate of Cumberland Regional in Upper Deerfield, finished fourth in the Aggies’ own season-opening Delaware Valley Invitational.

Although the official results list Loew’s time as over an hour for the 6,000-meter course in Doylestown, it appears he actually ran 20:00, which is 16:40 pace for 5,000 meters.

There’s not much to Loew’s bio on DVU’s web site — in fact there’s nothing in his bio — https://athletics.delval.edu/roster.aspx?rp_id=5788. But Loew was DelVal’s No. 2 runner in the race, apparently finishing eight seconds behind sophomore Ryan Harris.

Loew has improved tremendously since he ran for Cumberland Regional, where his PRs were 4:48 for 1,600 meters and 10:50 for 3,200 meters.

It appears he began his collegiate career at Cumberland County Community College in Vineland, where he placed eighth in the NJCAA Division 3 national championships as a freshman with a time of 29:42 over the 8,000-meter course in Canandaigua, N.Y., earning All-America honors.

He ran last fall as well for Cumberland but it’s not clear whether he ran at the Region 19 meet or nationals since meet results don’t seem to be available anywhere and Cumberland’s web site has no record of the school’s XC program competing at regionals in the fall of 2017.

Loew was Cumberland County College’s commencement speaker this past spring after earning a 3.8 GPA.

DelVal is off this weekend but scheduled to compete next Friday at the Moravian College Cedar Crest College Invitational in Bethlehem, Pa.

Penn State freshman Madison Coppolino, who starred at Sterling High School, finished 18th of more than 125 runners in the Spiked Shoe Invitational in State College this past weekend.

Coppolino ran unattached, which leaves the possibility that she will red-shirt her freshman year, but she covered the 6,000-meter course in 21:54, which is the same pace [5:52 per mile] as running 18:15 over the high school 5,000-meter distance.

Coppolino finished sixth among Penn State runners, although she doesn’t count in team scoring because she ran unattached. Penn State won the team title, 32-55, over Syracuse.

Coppolino was the fifth freshman across the line and the third from Penn State, following overall winner Julia Paternain, who hails from Cambridge, England, and Jordan Williams of Sharon, Pa., who was 16th. Another PSU freshman, Moria O’Shea from Greensburg, Pa., was 21st. Four of the top six freshmen in the race are from Penn State.

Another South Jersey freshman, Mainland’s Alyssa Aldridge, finished 26 seconds behind Coppolino. Aldridge was Georgetown’s fifth runner, placing 32nd in the field of 127 in 22:20. Georgetown placed third.

A week earlier in her collegiate debut, Coppolino placed 11th — among ninth among Penn State runners – over 4,000 meters in the Dolan Duals meet at Lock Haven with a time of 15:17.

Penn State is ranked No. 1 in the Mid-Atlantic Region and No. 13 nationally.

At Sterling, Coppolino placed 13th in the XC Meet of Champions last fall and ran 10:46.38 for fifth I the 3,200 at the Meet of Champions last spring.