Senior Ryan Smith recorded the best finish by a Rancocas Valley runner at states in 29 years and will become R.V.’s first runner at the Meet of Champions in 28 years.

Smith ran 16:25 – fastest in school history at historic Holmdel County Park – and placed 5th in a very fast, very deep state Group 4 race Saturday. Racing in the worst of the unseasonably warm mid-day heat, Smith posted the 5th-fastest time among South Jersey runners in the six championship races and the 24th-fastest time ov erall of more than 800 runners.

The only faster South Jersey runners were Group 2 winner George Andrus of Haddonfield [15:41], senior Patrick Ditmars [15:59] and junior Nick Kuenkel [16:08] from Cherokee in Group 4 and junior Peyton Shute of Woodbury [16:24] in Group 3.

Smith broke his own R.V. Holmdel record of 16:31 that he ran last month at Shore Coaches.

Smith’s 9th-place finish was the best by an R.V. runner at states since Jon Harris ran 9th in the 1993 Group 3 meet in 16:50. R.V. qualified as a team that year and placed 5th overall. The last R.V. runner to place higher than 9th was Mike Clayton, who was 5th in Group 3 in 1985 in 17:19.

On Saturday, Smith will race in the 50th annual Meet of Champions on the same Holmdel course. He’ll be R.V.’s first runner at the M-of-C since Mike Walker – now the College of New Jersey track distance coach and XC assistant coach – placed 40th in the 1994 meet at Holmdel in 17:15.

The best finish ever by a Rancocas Valley boy at the MoC was Jon Harris’s 33rd in 17:11 in the 1992 meet.

A large contingent of South Jersey runners will be making its way to Holmdel on Saturday for the Meet of Champions, and we now know exactly how large it is.

On Saturday, we learned that the Cherokee and Haddonfield boys had qualified automatically as the state Group 2 and 4 winners and Cinnaminson had qualified as one of the eight-fastest non-winning teams – their 17:18 average was 6th-fastest of non-winners and 10th-fastest overall.

The only girls teams to qualify were Group 2 winner Haddonfield and Group 3 winner Clearview. No South Jersey girls teams qualified as wild cards.

The top 10 individuals in each race automatically qualify, as do the next 30 fastest runners in a six-race merge once runners whose teams have qualified and those who were in the top 10 are eliminated.

For South Jersey, the boys auto individual qualifiers are Glassboro junior Elijah Whitaker [8th in Group 1], Audubon junior Aiden Williams [9th in Group 1], Haddon Heights senior Jack Bolling [4th in Group 2], Collingswood junior Elijah Forrest [9th in Group 2], Woodbury junior Peyton Shute [2nd in Group 3], Ocean City senior Nick Scarangelli [6th in Group 3], Rancocas Valley senior Ryan Smith [9th in Group 4], Holy Spirit senior John Flammer [4th in Parochial B], Moorestown Friends sophomore Isaac Linden [5th in Parochial B] and Bishop Eustace junior Matt Colden [8th in Parochial B] and Moorestown Friends senior Andrew Mercantini [10th in Parochial B].

The girls individual auto qualifiers from South Jersey are: Haddon Township senior Meghan Lex [2nd in Group 1], Cinnaminson senior Stephanie Renouf [10th in Group 2], Northern Burlington sophomore Liliah Gordon [1st in Group 3], Delsea senior Lillie Widmer [4th in Group 3], Mainland Regional junior Gillian Lovett [5th in Group 3], sophomore Sofia Day [7th in Group 3], Cherry Hill East senior Alexis Tepper [7th in Group 4], Cherokee junior Kerry O’Day [9th in Group 4], Paul VI junior Shaelan McNally [6th in Parochial A] and Bishop Eustace seniors Elena Cicchini [3rd in Parochial B] and Arianna Cane [4th in Parochial B].

Among those not on a winning team or on a wild-card team or in the top 10, the boys cutoff is 17:05 and the girls cutoff is 20:41.

Here are the South Jersey boys who advanced to the Meet of Champions as wild-cards:

16:32 … *Will Mrozinski [Paul VI], 14th, Parochial A
16:35 … Colin Hermack [Lenape], 11th, Group 4
16:41 … Ryan Taylor [Egg Harbor Twp.], 18th, Group 4
17:00 … **Dylan Saber [Williamstown], 31st, Group 4
17:04 … *Raine Guidarelli [Cherry Hill East], 35th, Group 4
17:05 … Cavan Agatone [Clearview], 20th, Group 3
17:05 … Cole Knoedler [Highland], 21st, Group 3

And the girls list:

20:08 … *Michaela Schlemo [Egg Harbor Twp.], 12th in Group 4
20:16 … **Maeve Smith [Ocean City], 16th in Group 4
20:22 … Nicole Lipieta [Kingsway], 17th in Group 4
20:30 … **Nilaa Ponnappan [Camden Catholic], 11th in Parochial A
20:31 … Madeline Dischert [Atlantic City], 19th in Group 4
20:36 … Alex Fisher [Williamstown], 22nd in Group 4
20:40 … **Megan Niglio [Cherokee], 25th in Group 4

There is no official list from the NJSIAA (surprise) so please let me know if you see an error or omission. These lists are a little tricky, and when the state association has no interest in providing correct and timely information to athletes, coaches, parents and fans it’s up to interested observers to do their best coming up with qualifying lists.

Delsea senior Lillie Widmer and junior Gillian Lovett and sophomore Sofia Day all earned auto qualifiers into the Meet of Champions with top-10 finishes Saturday in the state Group 3 race.

Widmer placed 4th in 19:26 at Holmdel County Park, Lovett 5th in 19:27 and Day 7th in 19:41. Including winner Liliah Gordon of Northern Burlington and seniors Abigail Waddington and Abigail Kotran of Clearview – who led the Pioneers to the team title – six of the first seven finishers in the Group 3 race were from South Jersey.

Widmer reached the Meet of Champions in outdoor track last spring in the 3,200, but this is her first trip to XC M-of-C. She lowered her Holmdel PR 51 seconds from 20:17 at Shore Coaches last month to 19:26. Widmer’s time is No. 15 of more than 700 runners and No. 3 among South Jersey girls, behind only Gordon [18:57] and Waddington [19:10].

Lovett qualified for her first Meet of Champions in track or XC and posted the No. 16 time in the six-meet merge.

This will be Day’s 3rd Meet of Champions out of three tries. She placed 15th in last year’s XC Meet of Champions with an 18:49 at Holmdel and 13th indoors at 3,200 meters with a PR 11:08.72. Her 19:41 is 2nd-fastest among all New Jersey sophomores, behind only Gordon.

Glassboro junior Elijah Whitaker placed 8th in the state Group 1 meet Saturday, becoming the first Glassboro runner to qualify for the Meet of Champions in 27 years.

Whitaker ran 17:17 in unseasonably warm conditions at hilly Holmdel County Park and earned an auto qualifier as a top-10 finisher.

He ran more than a minute and a half faster Saturday than he ran at last year’s state meet at Holmdel, when he placed 44th in 18:52.

Whitaker finished only 31 seconds behind winner Keanu Ray, a senior from Weehawkin, who ran 16:46, and only 13 seconds behind the first underclassman, Metuchen junior Alex Patelski, who was 4th in 17:04.

Whitaker, the South Jersey Group 1 champ, is the Bulldogs’ first MoC qualifier since Pat Ryan, who placed 15th in the 1995 Meet of Champions in 16:38.

Tom Horne placed 29th in the 1992 race in 16:53, 31st in the 1993 race in 17:10 and 35th in the 1994 race in 17:11. Tim Graves ran 17:14 for 35th in the 1993 race.

Glassboro’s first runner at the Meet of Champions was Josh Davis, who ran 17:36 and placed 78th in the 1984 race.

The Meet of Champions is scheduled for Saturday, with the boys race starting at 11 a.m.

Senior John Flammer from Holy Spirit, sophomroe Isaac Linden and senior Andrew Mercantini of Moorestown Friends and junior Matt Colden of Bishop Eustace all placed in the top 10 in the Parochial B race at states and earned auto bids to Saturday’s Meet of Champions.

Flammer, a 2:00 half-miler last spring, ran a Holmdel PR of 18:07 and placed 4th to qualify for the Meet of Champions for the first time.

Linden was the top sophomore in the race, taking 5th place in 18:30, nearly two minutes faster than he ran at Holmdel at states last year, and Mercantini ran 18:44 for 10th. Both will race at the M-of-C for the first time. They’re the first Moorestown Friends runners to advance to the Meet of Champions since junior Mark Johnson, who placed 5th at Parochial B states in 2019.

Colden led Eustace to a 2nd-place finish behind St. Rose of Belmar, which finished with a 74-91 margin of victory.

Colden placed 8th in 18:36, and junior Christopher Stinson and sophomore Ethan Capraola took 17th in 19:01.

This was Eustace’s 2nd straight 2nd-place finish in the state championships. The Crusaders took 2nd to Newark Academy 65-78 last year. They were also 2nd to Newark Academy in 2018 [54-103] after winning the title in 2016.

The race was won by senior Jeremy Sallade of Wilberforce School in Plainsboro  in 17:01. Sallade’s father Chris ran 4:17.39 at Shawnee and was the 1990 state Group 4 champion at 1,600 meters.

Sophomore Liliah Gordon became Northern Burlington’s first state cross country champion in program history Saturday, winning the state Group 3 title in 18:57 at Holmdel County Park.

Gordon placed 2nd last year in 18:44, behind only Lilly Shapiro of Colts Neck, who’s now running for North Carolina.

Gordon previously shared the best finish at states in Northern history with Colleen Sunderland, who ran 19:20 at Holmdel in 1994 and placed second in Group 2 to Woodstown’s Jaime Weisgerber, the eventual Meet of Champions winner.

She becomes the first South Jersey girl to win a state XC title since Alyssa Aldridge of Mainland Regional won Group 3 in 2017. The last Burlington County girl to win at states was Cherokee’s Megan Lacy, who won Group 4 in 2011. The last from the BCSL was Meghan Hughes of Moorestown, who won Group 2 in 2001 in 19:28.

Gordon won by 55 meters over Clearview senior Abigail Waddington, who led Clearview to the state Group 3 team title. It was the first South Jersey 1-2 finish in the state Group 3 meet since 2009, when Kingsway’s Chelsea Ley and Highland’s Megan Venables went 1-2.

Gordon’s time was No. 4 in a merge of the six state championship meets, behind only Red Bank Catholic senior Cate DeSousa [18:42 to win Parochial A], Emma Zawatski [18:44 to win Group 4] and Lindsay Hausman of Kent Place in Summit [18:54 for 2nd in Parochial A]. They were the only four girls to break 19 minutes on the challenging Holmdel course in unseasonably warm conditions.

Waddington and senior teammate Abigail Kotran advanced to the Meet of Champions Saturday on the same course as part of the winning team.

Other South Jersey girls in the top 10 in Group 3 who qualified for next weekend’s MoC on the same course are Delsea senior Lillie Widmer [4th in 19:26], Mainland junior Gillian Lovett [5th in 19:27] and Mainland sophomore Sofia Day [7th in 19:41].

In past years, Cinnaminson would have automatically advanced to the Meet of Champions with its 2nd-place finish in the state Group 2 meet.

This year, the Pirates had to sweat it out.

A change in the way teams advance from states to Meet of Champions this year has each of the six group winners automatically advancing and then the next six-fastest schools based on their combined average. Previously, the top three teams in each group advanced.

The change really makes it difficult for schools from smaller groups to advance, but Cinnaminson made it.

Cinnaminson placed 2nd to Haddonfield at states in the second race of the day and first boys race. It was Cinnaminson’s 25th all-time top-10 finish at states.

The Pirates’ five scorers averaged 17:18, 10th-fastest of all schools at states at Holmdel County Park and 6th-fastest among all non winners. Cinnaminson packed its five scorers in 58 seconds.

By the time the results of the last boys race finally were available – more than five hours later – Cinnaminson was long gone, but the Pirates will be back next Saturday to race in the Meet of Champions.

Seniors Alex Boyko, Matt McCarron and Derek Coceano led the Pirates in 5th, 7th and 14th place, Boyko in 16:35, McCarron 16:41 and Coceano in 17:12. Seniors Dean Clark [49th in 17:55] and Ryan Coceano [60th in 18:11] also scored for Cinnaminson.

Cinnaminson has placed 2nd at states seven times, the last four times behind only Haddonfield [2002, 2008, 2021, 2022]. The Pirates also placed 2nd in 1971 in Group 3 [to Westfield] and in 1986 and 1987 to Princeton and then Bernards.

Here’s a look at Cinnaminson’s all-time top-10 finishes at states:

2nd in 2022
2nd in 2021
7th in 2017
6th in 2016
2nd in 2008
9th in 2007
3rd in 2004
3rd in 2003
2nd in 2002
5th in 2001
3rd in 1992
4th in 1991
3rd in 1990
1st in 1989
3rd in 1988
2nd in 1987
2nd in 1986
7th in 1985
3rd in 1984
7th in 1982
6th in 1975
7th in 1970
6th in 1974
2nd in 1971
7th in 1970

After waiting an hour and 45 minutes for official results, then seeing that they placed 4th, Cherokee finally learned that they did indeed win another state cross country title.

Two hours after they finished their race.

The Chiefs won the state Group 4 championship by nine points over Westfield, which was initially announced as the state Group 4 champion at Holmdel County Park.

Meet officials omitted the results of Cherokee senior Patrick Ditmars in initially compiling the team scoring and posted the incorrect results, which showed Westfield winning the team title.

After Westfield started celebrating, meet officials removed those results and replaced them with corrected results correctly showing Cherokee as the state Group 4 team champion.

The state title is the 7th for Cherokee, 10th-most in state history and 3rd-most ever for a South Jersey school, behind only Haddonfield [21] and Haddon Township [10].

Only Westfield has won more in Group 4 – 15 from 1963 through 2011 – but Cherokee held off Westfield 102-111 on Saturday, with Southern a close 3rd with 119 points.

On an unseasonably warm day at Holmdel, the boys Group 4 race was run in the thick of the mid—day heat, and the temperatures in the high 70s affected a lot of runners.

But it affected Cherokee the least, and the Chiefs won their second title in the last times the race has been contested. They won in 2019 and there was no meet in 2020. Ridge, which won last year, placed 4th with 131 points.

Senior Patrick Ditmars placed 3rd in 15:59, junior Nick Kuenkel 5th in 16:08 for Cherokee and senior Conor Jacob 12th in 16:36. Junior Robert Poplau was 40th (30th in team scoring) in 17:17.

After four runners, Cherokee was sitting at 44 points [2-3-9-30] and Westfield had 62 [4-14-21-23]. Westfield’s 5th runner placed 60th overall in 17:44 – 49th in team scoring – giving them a final total of 111 points.

The next Cherokee runner was a surprise. Sophomore Anthony DiBatista – who began the year running JV, first broke 19 minutes six weeks ago and has been Cherokee’s 6th man the last few meets – ran 17:55 on a very challenging course in difficult conditions and finished just nine seconds behind Westfield’s 6th man, taking 71st overall (58th in team scoring), giving the Chiefs the 9-point margin of victory.

Despite the conditions, Cherokee averaged 16:47 at Holmdel, 3rd-fastest of the day behind two Parochial A schools – CBA [16:06] and Union Catholic [16:32].

Cherokee won its first four state titles from 1997 through 2000, adding championships in 2007, 2019 and now 2021.

Rancocas Valley senior Ryan Smith placed 9th in the Group 4 race in 16:25 to earn an auto qualifying spot at next weekend’s Meet of Champions. Smith broke his own Holmdel chool record. He ran 16:31 at Shore Coaches last month.

Seniors Abigail Waddington and Abigail Kotran and junior Margaret Wisniewski all placed in the top 12 to lead the Clearview girls to their first state cross country championship in program history.

Waddington ran 19:10 at Holmdel County Park and placed 2nd in the state Group 3 meet  to Northern Burlington’s Liliah Gordon, Kotran ran 19:32 and placed 6th and Wisniewski ran 20:01 to place 12th overall.

Gordon became Northern Burlington’s first state cross country champion in program history Saturday, winning in 18:57 over Holmdel’s hilly, winding 5,000-meter course. More on Gordon soon!

Clearview, ranked 4th in New Jersey, outscored 2nd-place North Hunterdon 57-82. The Pioneers became the first South Jersey school to win the state Group 3 title since Moorestown in 1999.

Clearview had never placed in the top 10 previously at the state XC championships. The Pioneers’ previous best finish was last year’s 11th place.

Waddington’s finish is the best by a Clearview girl at the state meet since 1990, when Carrie Thompson placed 5th in Group 3 in 21:32 at Holmdel.

Junior Allison Roes ran 20:40 and placed 24th and senior Aubrey Donahue ran 21:16 for 37th for Clearview, which averaged 20:07 at Holmdel and earned an automatic berth in next weekend’s Meet of Champions on the same course.

The 20:07 average is Clearview’s best ever at Holmdel. Their previous best was a 20:18 average at Shore Coaches in September.

Clearview is only the 3rd Gloucester County girls program to win a state XC title. Delsea won Group 2 in 2009 and Pitman won Group 1 in 2013.

Haddonfield packed its five scorers in an insane 19 seconds and cruised to its South Jersey-record 11th state cross country title Saturday at Holmdel.

Junior Audrey Naticchia, freshman Riley Austin, junior Ava Thomas and senior Helene Usher placed 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th in 19:30 through 19:36 and junior Riley Slootsky was 11th in 19:49 in the state Group 2 championship race.

Haddonfield averaged 19:36 over the 5,000-meter Holmdel County Park course, the 4th-fastest single-race time in South Jersey history at Holmdel and the fastest ever at the state meet. The only faster times are Cherokee’s 19:23 to win last year’s Meet of Champions, Haddonfield’s 19:31 to win the 2020 Holmdel Invitational and Haddonfield’s 19:35 for 5th at the 2013 Meet of Champions.

The fastest previous team average by a South Jersey school at Holmdel in the state meet was Haddonfield’s 19:52 to win last year’s state Group 2 title.

Haddonfield is ranked No. 2 in the state, behind only Union Catholic, which averaged 20:17 Saturday in wining the state Parochial A championship. They will meet Saturday at Holmdel in the Meet of Champions.

In New Jersey XC history, only Red Bank Catholic (20) and Bernards (12) have won more state titles than Haddonfield. Shawnee is second among South Jersey schools, with eight between 1983 and 2003.

Haddonfield won Group 1 in 1990 and 1993, then Group 2 in 1994, before returning to Group 1 and winning the 1998 title. After returning to Group 2, the Bulldogs won in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, then 2016 and 2021.

Haddonfield outscored 2nd-place Rumson-Fair Haven by 69 points, 36-105. The 36 points are the lowest winning total in Group 2 since Voorhees topped Bernards 34-103 in 2012. The 69-point margin of victory matched the largest since 2005, when Haddonfield defeated Chatham by 79 points – 33-116.

Haddonfield’s runners are virtually interchangeable. Their 1-2-3-4-5 runners Saturday finished as their 5-3-4-2 runners at sectionals.