The Haddonfield boys recorded three dual-meet wins Tuesday, extending their remarkable 22-year-old dual-meet winning streak to 205 consecutive wins.

That’s now believed to be the sixth-longest winning streak in U.S. scholastic XC history and just 39 shy of the South Jersey record set by nearby Paul VI over the 1980 through 2007 seasons:

359 … Christian Brothers Academy, Lincroft, N.J. [1973-current]
265 … Blackstone-Millville, Mass. [1974-1992]
250 … Fredonia, N.Y. [1971-1984]
247 … Addison, N.Y. [1998-2008]
244 … Paul VI, Haddon Twp., N.J. [1980-2007]
205 … Haddonfield, N.J. [1997-current]
204 … McQuaid Jesuit, Rochester, N.Y. [1971-2000]
189 … State College, Pa. [1965-1985]

Haddonfield defeated West Deptford, Audubon and Gateway, all by 15-50 scores, Tuesday over 5,000 meters at West Deptford Park.

Haddonfield’s first seven runners ran between 17:36 and 17:39, and overall the Bulldogs swept the top 10 fastest times of the day.

Here’s what Haddonfield’s top 10 looked like:

17:36.7 … Greg Eisenhower, Greg [sr.]
17:37.0 … Ethan Spellmeyer [sr.]
17:37.4 … Sean Campiglia [sr.]
17:37.7 … Martin Riddell [jr.]
17:38.1 … Stephen Kasko [jr.]
17:38.4 … Andrew Gostovich [jr.]
17:40.0 … Grayson Fasolo [jr.]
17:48.5 … Derek Gess [sr.]
17:52.0 … Caleb Clevenger [soph.]
17:55.5 … Griffin Weiner [sr.]

The top non-Haddonfield finisher was sophomore Brady Shute of Gateway-Woodbury Co-op, who ran 18:00.

West Depford beat Audubon 20-36 and Gateway Co-op 21-36. Audubon defeated Gateway, 24-31.

Haddonfield has seven dual meets remaining this year: Paulsboro, Haddon Heights and Lindenwold on Monday, Haddon Township, Collingswood and Overbrook on Sept. 25 and Sterling on Oct. 2, all at Pennypacker Park

Cherokee didn’t run particularly fast, thanks to the terrible conditions, but they sure raced well. The Cherokee boys didn’t win the actual team title at the 23rd annual Cherokee Challenge because team scoring only accounts for the first finisher in each of the four class races.

But scored as a traditional meet — five-fastest times — Cherokee would have won in a very close finish over Westfield.

The Chiefs had four of the top 21 finishers in a merged result and two more in the top 60, with nearly 1,600 boys combined in the various races.

Scored as a conventional meet, Cherokee would have edged Westfield, 103-109, with Salesianum of Delaware third at 145 and Mainland fourth with 249 and the only other school under 300 points.

Westfield packed five runners in the top 31 (and six in the top 41), but Cherokee went 4-9-14-21 to build up a 30-point lead through four runners and hung on for the theoretical win over a very good Westfield team.

Cherokee’s top four and Westfield’s top five were all underclassmen.

Chris Spisak, Ethan Wechsler and Chase Miller went 2-4-7 in the junior race and times don’t really matter considering how wet and muddy the 3,200-meter course was, but they all ran between 10:01 and 10:25. Cherokee’s fourth was Nico Grilli, who was second in the soph race in 10:33.

Senior David Jackson ran 24th in the senior race in 10:46 and sophomore Brett Shea took 12th in the soph race in 10:48, and Michael Gavio took 36th in the junior race in 10:58, giving Cherokee seven under 11 minutes in the various races combined.

Cherokee is ranked No. 10 in the state according to Milesplit. Westfield is ranked No. 7.

Clayton native Alexis Jones of Rutgers-Camden opened her season with a terrific race, placing third in the Philly Metro Invitational at Belmont Plateau in West Philadelphia.

In poor conditions, Jones covered the legendary 5,000-meter course in Fairmount Park in 20:59, finishing just 35 meters behind overall winner Taylor Neals of Chestnut Hill College.

Jones attended Felician College in Rutherford and Rowan Gloucester County College before enrolling at Rutgers-Camden. It appears that she didn’t run cross country while she was at Felician College.

She graduated from Gloucester County Tech, although there’s no record on MileSplit of her ever competing in cross country there. Gloucester Tech doesn’t have a track team.

In the fall of 2016, competing for Rowan Gloucester County College, Jones placed 18th in the NJCAA Division 3 nationals in Canandaigua, N.Y., after taking second in the Region 19 race in Newark two weeks earlier.

Jones placed 36th in the NJAC championships last fall at Stockton University.

 

 

Bishop Eustace’s Katy Storti opened her 2018 cross country with a rainy, muddy, sloppy 10-second win in the senior girls race at the 23rd annual Cherokee Challenge Saturday in Marlton.

Storti covered the 3,200-meter course in 12:14, finishing 40 meters ahead of Nia Goddard of Conestoga High in Chester County, Pa.

Storti became the first Eustace girl to ever win any class race at Cherokee. Holly Bischof placed second in the junior race in 2010 and the senior race in 2011. Storti was third last year in the junior race.

Storti last year placed third in the state Parochial A race at Holmdel and was the No. 3 finisher from South Jersey at the Meet of Champions.

Last time a South Jersey girl won the senior girls race at the Cherokee Challenge was 2010, when Megan Lacy of Cherokee ran 10:55 to edge Bischof by three seconds.

Complete Cherokee Challenge history can be found here.

Pitman graduate Hannah Vendetta, now a senior at Rowan, was first across the line Saturday in the 22nd annual Salisbury (Md.) Fall Classic.

Vendetta ran 23:28 over 6,000 meters on Salisbury’s home course on the school’s campus. She won by about 14 meters over Catie Cambron of Salisbury.

Vendetta was the NJAC mile champion indoors and 1,500 champ outdoors last spring.

Salisbury, ranked No. 5 in the NCAA Division 3 Region by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association, won the team title 31-26 over Rowan despite three Rowan runners in the top five.

Madison Edwards, a freshman from Cinnaminson, made her college debut with an impressive fourth-place finish in 23:37 and senior Jennifer Klavens of Washington Township was fifth in 23:53. Edwards was second last fall in the South Jersey Group 2 race, and Klavens was 12th in the NJAC XC race last fall.

Rounding out Rowan’s all-South Jersey top five were sophomore Alyssa Sanders of Pitman, 10th in 24:06, and Carly Tool of Seneca, 11th in 24:23.

Vendetta and Sanders were teammates on the 2013 Pitman team that won the state Group 1 title by 58 points.

 

Billy Mayhew of Delsea, Nick Falk of Cherokee and Pat Mulligan of Haddon Township, all running their first college cross country races for The College of New Jersey, swept the first three spots in the 2018 Blue/Gold Alumni Invitational.

The race was held over 4,000 meters at Green Lane Fields in Ewing.

Mayhew ran 13:57, Falk 13:59 and Mulligan 13:59. Mayhew and Mulligan are freshmen, and Falk is a red-shirt freshman.

The top alumni was Chris Curto, a 2003 graduate of TCNJ and a 1999 graduate of Rancocas Valley. Curto, who placed 10th overall in 14:12, was a teammate at R.V. and at TCNJ with current TCNJ assistant coach Mike Walker.

Two other South Jersey runners finished with 20 seconds of the winner: junior Mike Zurzolo of Cherokee [5th in 14:00] and freshman Jack Ennis of Shawnee [12th in 14:16].

They haven’t run a race yet, but the Rowan Profs men’s cross country team is already off to a great start this fall!

Rowan is ranked No. 5 in NCAA Division 3 in the preseason Atlantic Region poll compiled by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Assocation.

Rowan won the New Jersey Athletic Association meet last year and placed fourth in the Atlantic Region last year and earned an at-large bid to race in the NCAA Championships, where the Profs placed 23rd.

The College of New Jersey and Ramapo are right behind Rowan, giving the NJAC three of the top seven schools in the Atlantic Region.

Here is the full poll:

Rowan also earned a No. 29 national ranking in the preseason poll, which you can find here.

2018 NCAA DIII Men’s Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll – Preseason

The Profs are led by Dan “Fitch” Henry, a senior out of Clearview, who placed second to teammate Kevin Veltre in last year’s NJAC conference meet at Stockton nd

Other South Jersey runners on the Profs’ 2018 roster are juniors Ryan Federline (Cherry Hill East),  Jacob Hellmig (Delsea) and Jason Muermann (Pitman); sophomores Dean Mignogna (Washington Township) and Michael Onu (Cherry Hill East); and freshmen Korey Greene (Ocean City), Jordan Pitt (Vineland), Nick Simila (St. Augustine) and Sean Smithson (Washington Township).

TCNJ also has numerous South Jersey runners on its roster, including senior Jack Wood (Haddonfield), juniors Mike Zurzolo (Cherokee) Chris Coombs (Burlington Township), sophomores Nick Falk (Cherokee), Robert Abrams (Cherry Hill West) and Noah Preihs (Cherry Hill East), freshmen Jack Ennis (Shawnee) and Michael Iannotta (Cherokee), William Mayhew (Delsea), Patrick Mulligan (Haddon Township), Matthew Smith (Cherokee).

Rowan is scheduled to open the season Saturday morning at the Salisbury (Md.) Invitational. TCNJ is scheduled to open at the Blue-Gold Invite on its own campus in Ewing.

After a 13-month injury layoff, English Gardner returned to track and field with a splash, winning the 100-meter dash at the Palio della Quercia in Rovereto, Italy.

Gardner, a Voorhees native and graduate of Eastern Regional High School, ran a meet-record-tying 11.02 and beat a loaded field that included 2016 U.S. champion and Olympic finalist Michelle Lee Ahye and Olympic 400-meter relay gold medalist Imani Lansiquot.

“I expected to run faster, but I am glad I had the opportunity to compete here,” Gardner said.

It was Gardner’s first race since July 12, 2017, when she ran 11.21 at Lignano Sabbiadoro, about 150 miles to the east in Italy. Soon after she shut down with an injury.

The 11.02 was her fastest time since the 2016 Olympics in Rio, when she ran 10.94 and placed seventh.

Gardner’s time makes her No. 7 American this year. Her PR of 10.74 at the 2016 Olympic Trials in Eugene is No. 7 in world history and and No. 4 in U.S. history.

Florence High graduate Curtis Thompson threw 247-7 to place third in the javelin Sunday  in the 2018 Athletics World Cup at Olympic Stadium in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.

Thompson, competing in just his second meet this year after sitting out the entire season for Mississippi State, was just 20 inches off his season-best of 249-3, which he threw last month to win the USATF U.S. National Championships in Des Moines.

Thompson, the 2016 NCAA champion and Olympic Trials runner-up, has a career-best of 271-11 from the Trials last year in Eugene, Ore.

Thompson finished behind only Olympian Julian Weber of Germany, who threw 271-7, and Polish national record holder Marcin Krukowski, who was second with a 263-3.

When Florence High graduate Curtis Thompson won the javelin this weekend at the U.S. Track Championships, he continued a tradition that began 112 years ago.

That’s when Almonesson native and four-time Olympic gold mealiMel Sheppard ran 1:55.4 to win the 880-Yard Run at the U.S. Championships in New York. It was the first of five national titles for Sheppard, who grew up in Clayton, moved to what is now Deptford Township when he was 9 and lived later in Haddonfield and Philly.

 

 

MEN
2018
Curtis Thompson [Florence], Javelin [249-3]

1999
Dennis Mitchell [Edgewood], 100-Meter Dash [9.97w]

1996
Dennis Mitchell [Edgewood], 100-Meter Dash [9.92]

1993
Jack Pierce [Woodbury], 110-Meter Hurdles [13.19]

1992
Dennis Mitchell [Edgewood], 100-Meter Dash [10.09]
Jack Pierce [Woodbury], 110-Meter Hurdles [13.13]

1991
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [28-4 1/4]

1990
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], 100-Meter Dash [10.05]
Vince Labosky [Holy Cross], Javelin [261-3]

1987
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], 200-Meter Dash [20.12]
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [28-4 1/2]

1986
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], 100-Meter Dash [9.91w]
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [28-5 1/2w]

1983
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], 100-Meter Dash [10.27]
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], 200-Meter Dash [19.75]
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [28-10 1/4]

1982
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], 100-Meter Dash [10.11]
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [27-10]

1981
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], 100-Meter Dash [10.13]
Carl Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [28-3 1/2]

1957
Charles Pratt [Palmyra], Decathlon [7,164]

1956
Charles Pratt [Palmyra], 200-Meter Hurdles [22.8]

1955
Charles Pratt [Palmyra], 220-Yard Hurdles [23.5]

1912
Mel Sheppard [Almonesson], 880-Yard Run [1:57.4]

1911
Mel Sheppard [Almonesson], 880-Yard Run [1:54.9]

1908
Mel Sheppard [Almonesson], 880-Yard Run [1:55.6]

1907
Mel Sheppard [Almonesson], 880-Yard Run [1:55.2]

1906
Mel Sheppard [Almonesson], 880-Yard Run [1:55.4]

WOMEN
2016
English Gardner [Eastern], 100-Meter Dash [10.74]

2013
English Gardner [Eastern], 100-Meter Dash [10.85]

1986
Carol Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [22-9w]

1985
Carol Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [22-8 1/2w]

1983
Carol Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [22-8]

1982
Carol Lewis [Willingboro], Long Jump [22-4 1/4]