From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

Maple Shade junior Juliana Catalani edged Woodstown sophomore Abby Marino for the overall title, and Haddon Township placed four in the top 17 to win the team title in Division 1 of the South Jersey Open Saturday.

Catalani ran an all-course PR 19:19 over 5,000 meters at DREAM Park in Logan Township and won by 35 meters over Marino, who was 2^nd in 19:28, an all-course PR for her as well. It was Catalani’s 1^st-ever invitational title.

Junior Tanner Lajoie, senior Blake Kemery, sophomore Isabella Dodd and junior Biz Maher placed 6^th, 10^th, 14^th and 17^th for Haddon Township, which recorded a 52-62 win over Camden Catholic.

Junior Chloe Lajoie, junior Reagan Maher and sophomore Summer Starnes gave Haddon Township seven in the top 30, Lajoie 25^th in 23:09, Maher 26^th in 23:21 and Starnes 30^th in 23:33.

For Camden Catholic, Erin Callinan was 7^th in 20:54, Brynn Deiwert 9^th in 21:23, Maddy O’Neil 12^th in 21:43, Emma Rachoin 19^th in 22:04, Joelle Garibaldi 42^nd in 24:56 and Grace Ramirez 43^rd in 25:11.

Others in the top 10: West Deptford Kayola Romanoski [3^rd, 19:30], West Deptford Taylor Sierzega [4^th, 19:50], Collingswood Hazel Straight [5^th, 20:27] and Woodstown Anabel Schaal [8^th, 20:55].

Junior Grace Gutowski placed 5^th and senior Giovanna Mantuano, freshman Isabella Suarez and sophomore Peyton Blake also ran in the top 10 and Paul VI won the Varsity E girls race Saturday morning at the Manhattan Invitational in the Bronx.

Gutwoski ran 15:28 over the 2 ½-mile course at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, and PVI – ranked 6^thin New Jersey – edged Cornwall High of New Windsor, Orange County, N.Y., 55-67. Cornwall is ranked 5^th in New York State’s Class B Division.

Mantuano placed 11^th in 15:57, Suarez 17^th in 16:15 and Blake 18^th in 16:18. Sophomore Morgan Kuzma clinched the team title in 28^th place in 16:47. She finished five spots (and three team spots) ahead of Cornwall’s fifth runner.

For team scoring purposes, PVI went 3-6-12-13-21 and Cornwall was 8-9-11-15-24.

Senior Riley Austin, junior Molly Mills and junior Devon Gervasi all placed in the top 20 and the Haddonfield girls won the Varsity D girls race at the Manhattan University Invitational Saturday at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

Austin ran 15:01 and placed 3^rd, Mills ran 16:14 for 18^th and Gervasi 16:14 for 19^th over the historic Vanny 2 ½-mile course, and Haddonfield edged Ocean City 98-119 for the team title.

Freshman Dylan Hosty ran 16:31 and senior Elizabeth Pappas 17:00 for 21^st and 41^st for the Bulldogs, ranked 7^th in New Jersey.

Sophomore Riley Tolson placed 5^th in 15:15 to lead Ocean City, ranked 13^th in New Jersey.

Also in Ocean City’s top five were junior Peighton Clemens [25^th, 16:40], senior Gabrielle Henry [28^th, 16:41], freshman Isabella Edwards [33^rd, 16:45] and freshman Bella Cera [35^th, 16:52] also in the top five.

Sophomore Addison Weiss ran the 2^nd-fastest time ever at DREAM Park and just missed the course record, and the Cherry Hill East girls swept the top six spots in the Division 3 race at the South Jersey Open Saturday.

Weiss ran 17:53.44 over the 5,000-meter course in Logan Township, falling just short of the course record of 17:52.89 set by Shawnee’s Isabella Turner at the 2018 South Jersey Shootout.

Weiss’s previous all-course 5,000 best was 18:06 last month at the Battle of Ocean County Park.

Cherry Hill East, ranked 7^th in New Jersey, averaged 18:57.8 and outscored 2^nd-place Clearview 15-86.

Completing the sweep for East were junior Ryleigh Budsock [2^nd, 18:34], sophomore Emmie Wang [3^rd, 19:25], junior Katherine Grottini [4^th, 19:28] and junior Gabriella Pizzo [5^th, 19;29], backed up by senior Ella Davidson [6^th, 19:35].

Also in the top 10 were Gloucester Tech sophomore Jordan Moczydlowski [7^th, 19:37], Pennsauken sophomore Hope Edwards [8^th, 19:41], Cherokee freshman Casey Leisse [9^th, 19:42] and Winslow sophomore Annabella Cassidy [10^th, 20:42].

Seniors Jacob Marino and Karson Chew and junior David Farrell swept the top three spots and Woodstown won the boys title at the Salem County Championships Wednesday in Pittsgrove Township.

Marino ran 16:37, Chew 16:58 and Farrell 17:19 and Woodstown beat Schalick 21-47, with Salem Tech 3^rd with 77 points.

Schalick was led by junior Colin Bittle, senior Sal Longo and senior Chase Riley, who took 4^th, 5^th and 6^th in 17:31, 17:33 and 17:44.

Then Woodstown filled up the rest of the top 10, with junior Pacey Hutton 7^th  in 18:08, sophomore Torsten Duva 8^th in 18:22, junior Jackson Perry 9^th in 18:23 and sophomore John Hearst 10^th in 18:31.

In the girls meet, sophomore Abby Marino and junior Anabel Schaal of Woodstown finished 1-2 in 19:59 and 21:33, but Schalick edged Woodstown 28-32 to win the team title, with Salem Tech 3^rd with 77.

Schalick placed five in the top nine, with junior Helen Lillia [3^rd in 21:46], sophomore Emma Cain [5^th in 23:17], freshman Paetyn Wallace [7^th in 24:52], junior Sarah Torpey [8^th in 24:55] and freshman Emma Wilbur [9^th in 25:02.

Also in the top 10: Pennsville sophomore Sawyer Slad [4^th in 22:20], Woodstown senior Arianna Mott [6^th in 23:54] and Woodstown sophomore Kiera Porch [10^th in 25:30]

The Glassboro boys led all Group 1 schools at Shore Coaches Saturday with a 17:23 average on the 5,000-meter course at Holmdel County Park.

Glassboro placed 4^th in the Varsity F race behind three parochials – Union Catholic, Pingry and Paul VI.

The Bulldogs’ average was 16^th-fastest of 188 schools in seven varsity races. Next-fastest Group 1 average was Woodstown at 17:59.

Glassboro was led by sophomores Joe Saicic and Zacchaeus Harrigan in 4^th and 9^th with a 16:39 for Saicic and 16:56 for Harrigan. They were the first two sophomore finishers in the race and 2^nd– and 7^th-fastest 10^th-graders in all the varsity races combined.

Saicic’s time is fastest ever at Holmdem by a South Jersey Group 1 sophomore, one second faster than Pitman’s Sebastien Reed ran at the 2017 state meet.

Also for Glassboro, senior Jaeden Wesley ran 17:33 for 27^th, soph Aaron Johnson 17:39 in 31^st and sophomore Gavin Rakitis 45^th in 18:08.

Glassboro won South Jersey Group 1 last year and then placed 3^rd at the state Group 1 meet last year behind Metuchen and Indian Hills.

Here’s a look at Glassboro’s sub-17 runners ever at Holmdel:

16:07 … Elijah Whitaker, 2023 state Group 1 [1^st]
16:28 … Tom Horne, 1993 state Group 1 [1^st]
16:31 … Ty Blackman, 2024 Shore Coaches [2^nd]
16:38 … Pat Ryan, 1995 Meet of Champions [15^th]
16:39 … Joe Saicic, 2025 Shore Coaches [5^th]
16:56 … Zacchaeus Harrigan, 2025 Shore Coaches [9^th]

Hey! The results are finally up!

It took Shore Coaches half a day to get full results posted, and we’ve already made our feelings known about that, so we won’t blabber on and on about how ridiculous it is in this day and age for a major meet to let that happen.

But we do have some lists from Saturday – all the boys times 17L30 and under and all the girls times of 20:00 and under on the legendary Holmdel County Park 5,000 course – as well as the top 10 boys and girls team averages from Saturday.

Errors or omissions lemme know!

Boys sub-17:30 list
16:21 … **Jack Tindall [Cherokee], 9th, Varsity A
16:22 … Jacob Wickersham [Cinnaminson], 2nd, Varsity E
16:26 … Erik Preisner [Ocean City], 4th, Varsity C
16:33 … *Benjamin Realley [Cherokee], 13th, Varsity A
16:35 … Alvin Lin [Cherry Hill East], 15th, Varsity A
16:39 … **Joseph Saicic [Glassboro], 5th, Varsity F
16:46 … Michael Sinnes [Haddonfield], 4th, Varsity E
16:48 … *Nathan Aschmann [Ocean City], 7th, Varsity C
16:52 … Sean Martino [Cedar Creek], 7th, Varsity E
16:55 … *Cian Sherlock [Cherry Hill East], 23rd, Varsity A
16:56 … **Zacchaeus Harrigan [Glassboro], 8th, Varsity F
16:57 … Vincenzo Vecchio [Cedar Creek], 9th, Varsity E
16:58 … Shaun Maloney [Haddon Twp.], 10th, Varsity F
17:00 … **Trevor Szilier [Washington Twp.], 25th, Varsity A
17:02 … Jacob Marino [Woodstown], 11th, Varsity E
17:02 … Chris Monaghan [Paul VI], 11th, Varsity F
17:05 … David Houck [Co-Op Gateway/Woodbury], 12th, Varsity F
17:09 … *Chase Cooley [Paul VI], 14th, Varsity F
17:09 … *Maximo Harada [Cherokee], 31st, Varsity A
17:09 … Logan Pavelik [Williamstown], 30th, Varsity B
17:09 … *Max Long [Paul VI], 15th, Varsity F
17:10 … *Edward Abu-Adas [Cinnaminson], 15th, Varsity E
17:11 … Milo Poerner [Cherry Hill East], 33rd, Varsity A
17:17 … *Jamar Mack [Middle Twp.], 18th, Varsity E
17:17 … Brandon Stoner [Haddonfield], 17th, Varsity E
17:22 … *Jason Smith [Paul VI], 17th, Varsity F
17:24 … Lucas Laganella [Haddonfield], 18th, Varsity E
17:27 … Ryan McCann [Cedar Creek], 19th, Varsity E
17:27 … Vincent Peri [Winslow Twp.], 16th, Varsity B

Girls sub-20 list
18;51 … **Addison Weiss [Cherry Hill East], 3rd, Varsity A
18:52 … Julia Flanagan [Holy Cross], 8th, Varsity E
19:14 … Alyssa Suriano [Cherokee], 4th, Varsity A
19:18 … **Riley Tolson [Ocean City], 3rd, Varsity C
19:19 … Riley Fayer [Audubon], 4th, Varsity F
19:38 … Sophia Aldridge [Williamstown], 6th, Varsity B
19:47 … *Molly Mills [Haddonfield], 16th, Varsity E
19:51 … *Grace Gutowski [Paul VI], 8th, Varsity D
19:54 … Giovanna Mantuano [Paul VI], 9th, Varsity D
19:57 … *Theresa Albertson [Eastern], 8th, Varsity A
19:58 … *Ryleigh Budsock [Cherry Hill East], 9th, Varsity A

Top boys averages
17:05 … Cherokee [6th, Varsity A]
17:17 … Paul VI [3rd, Varsity F]
17:19 … Ocean City [2nd, Varsity C]
17:23 … Glassboro [4th, Varsity F]
17:30 … Cherry Hill East [7th, Varsity A]
17:30 … Haddonfield [2nd, Varsity E]
17:39 … Cinnaminson [3rd, Varsity E]
17:54 … Egg Harbor Twp. [9th, Varsity A]
17:59 … Woodstown [5th, Varsity E]
18:08 … Haddon Township [8th, Varsity F]

Top girls averages
20:18 … Cherry Hill East [2nd, Varsity A]
20:19 … Cherokee [1st, Varsity A]
20:21 … Paul VI [2nd, Varsity D]
20:28 … Haddonfield [3rd, Varsity E]
20:57 … Ocean City [2nd, Varsity C]
21:11 … Egg Harbor Twp. [5th, Varsity A]
21:32 … Audubon [6th, Varsity F]
22:00 … Moorestown [7th, Varsity B]
23:09 … Delsea [9th, Varsity C]
23:15 … Kingsway [11th, Varsity B]

Just an update on Shore Coaches, and it’s not a good one.

The last varsity results posted were Boys Varsity E, a race that began at 10:30 a.m. and finished around 10:50 a.m. with the final runners. It’s now 8:50 p.m., so it’s been 10 hours since the largest cross country meet in New Jersey managed to post anything.

The only excuse they’ve given is poor internet at Holmdel County Park, which is absurd, since it’s been five hours since the last race ended – Boys J.V. A. I seriously doubt whoever is responsible for timing is still sitting at the park waiting for a better internet connection when they could have driven home and posted the results. Heck, in five hours they could have driven to Boston and posted them.

And still nothing. No explanation, no apology, no estimate on when results will be available.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to post anything tomorrow because of my real job, so it’ll be till Monday afternoon till I have a chance to catch up on races that ended hours ago.

The real losers here are the kids. The ones who PR’d and would love to see where they finished. The ones who ran a Holmdel school record and can’t wait to see their official time. The ones who are just starting out as runners and are learning that what’s standard in other sports – finding out who won or lost and what the score was – is often unavailable in our sport.

We’ve all seen delays in results getting posted from small county or conference meets that don’t have FAT timing. We’ve all seen larger meets post results an hour or two after a meet. But in my 43 years covering track in South Jersey I have never seen anything like this.

We used to sit on rickety middle school desks at the finish line typing results into our old Radio hack laptops and we still had them available to readers faster than this, and that was 25 years ago.

This is unacceptable and it’s embarrassing and it’s a shame that such a great meet can’t figure out how to post results of races that ended 10 hours ago.

I will ask this: If you took a picture of any varsity races after Boys E please shoot them over to me in the comment section! Thanks!

Senior Alyssa Suriano placed 4th and senior Madeline Meder 11th and the Cherokee girls won their 2nd straight Shore Coaches Varsity A team title Saturday and their 3rd in the last five years.

Suriano ran 19:13 and Meder 20:08, and the Chiefs packed all five scorers in the top 25 in defeating Cherry Hill East, 79-92.

Also scoring for Cherokee were senior Sofia Recinto [20:30 in 18th], sophomore Erin Healy [22nd in 20:46] and senior Maya Kumar [24th in 20:53].

Cherokee averaged 20:18 on the challening 5,000-meter course at Holmdel County Park, their fastest ever at Shore Coaches. Their previous best average at Shore Coaches was 20:25 in 2021.

Official results have not been posted in five hours, but thanks to Cherokee coach Mark Jarvis for texting me copies of the printouts that were posted near the starting line.

Cherokee and Cherry Hill East are ranked 11th and 14th in New Jersey. Both finished well ahead of 4th-ranked Freehold Township, which was 3rd with 132 points.

Sophomore Addison Weiss led Cherry Hill East in 3rd place in 18:50, 3rd-fastest in Cherry Hill East history behind Theresa [18:18 in 2005] and Grace Yoon [18:28 in 2016, the only season she competed in XC].

Junior Ryleigh Budsock placed 9th in 19:57, sophomore Emmie Wang 19th in 20:31 and junior Katherine Grotini 29th in 21:02 for East.

Cherry Hill East actually had the fastest team average in the race at 20:17. East and Cherokee posted the 3rd- and 4th-fastest team averages ever by South Jersey schools at Shore Coaches, behind Ocean City’s 19:52 in 2024 and Haddonfield’s 20:08 in 2021. Clearview also averaged 20:18 in 2022.

Also under 21 minutes: Eastern junior Theresa Albertson [8th in 19:56], Egg Harbor Township senior Devyn Per [23rd in 20:48], Lenape junior Audrey McCorkl [26th in 20:57] and Egg Harbor freshman Corinne Conley [27th in 20:59]. Egg Harbor placed 5th with 170 points.

Previous South Jersey schools that won the Varsity A – largest-school – race: Paul VI in 1982 and 1987, Shawnee from 1991 through 1993, then five years in a row from 1995 through 1999, Cherry Hill East in 2006 and Lenape in 2007.

The last varsity race that results have been posted for is Boys Varsity E, which started at 10:30 a.m. and finished before 11 a.m. It’s now 3:25 p.m. and the “live results” page hasn’t been updated in more than four hours. This after the first few races had incorrect places and times.

I don’t even know what to say anymore. It seems like every track and XC meet in North Jersey has timing issues that we never see in South Jersey.

We keep hearing there are “internet issues” at Holmdel County Park, but there are so many workarounds that this lame excuse is unacceptable.

It’s 2025, for crying out loud.

If you don’t have access to a satellite phone to get around whatever internet issues there really are and if a wireless hotspot really doesn’t work – which I doubt is even true – have somebody set up at the Dunkin Donuts four miles away on Bethany Road or at the McDonald’s 4 ½ miles away on Rte. 35. Both have high-quality Wi-Fi. Have someone take results on a flash drive to the Dunkin or McDonald’s, where they can be posted immediately. Have two drivers and you can have all the results posted minutes after each race. Heck, I’ll volunteer to be one of the drivers.

If they really wanted the results available, they would be creative and find a way.

In the meantime, here are stories from a couple of the early races about Cinnaminson’s Jacob Wickersham  and Julia Flanagan

As soon as we have more to post, I promise we will!

EDIT: Just an additional note that now if you click on “LIVE RESULTS” you get results from an indoor track meet in Lawrenceville on Dec. 14, 2024. Big hurdles race for Sofia Swindell, who’s now a freshman at Penn.!

You keep being you, Shore Coaches!