From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

Super team performance Friday night by the Mainland Regional boys, whose first first four runners broke 16:50 and who had a 36-second gap among their five scorers at the Osprey Invitational at Stockton University in Galloway.

Junior Artur Simons Menezes was Mainland’s first finisher, taking third in 16:31, with junior teammate Mikin Patel five seconds back in fourth. Senior Nicholas Berenotto and sophomore Kevin Antczak both ran 16:47 for sixth and seventh, and senior Tiger Carey ran 17:07 for 16th. Mainland was backed up by sixth man Kyle Antczak, a junior, three seconds behind in 17th.

That’s 3-4-6-7-16 for 36 points. Ocean City was second with 80 and Williamstown third with 108 points.

Pitman sophomore Sebastien Reed, fourth in the South Jersey Group 1 sectional last fall as a freshman, was the overall winner, covering the flat 5,000-meter course in 16:01 and winning by about 110 meters over senior Korey Green of Ocean City.

Ocean City junior Gavyn Fox (fifth in 16:43), Washington Township junior Evan Chu (eighth in 16:50), junior Michael Abriola of Williamstown (ninth in 16:56) and junior Jared Tricomy of Toms River South (10th in 16:56) rounded out the top 10.

There were 138 boys from 19 high schools in the varsity race.

Full results here: https://tomahawktiming.com/922-osprey-invite-boys-varsity/

Lenape senior Alexa Woltjen had herself quite a debut Saturday, running 19:05 in her first career 5,000-meter race.

Woltjen, a 5:01 miler for Lenape last spring, placed second in the 65th annual George School Invitational in Middletown, Pa. Sophomore Rebecca Wusinich of Friends Central, who ran 18:54.

Lenape placed four of its varsity pack of seven in the top 32, with senior Talia Harman second in 21st place (21:11), senior Meghan Gizzard 30th (21:21) and senior Tara Donoghue in 32nd place (21:25). Junior Haylen Conway ran fifth in 22:21.

Final scores looked like this: Scranton Prep (105), Council Rock (114), Lenape (150), Penn Charter (159), Upper Darby (189) and Germantown Academy (191)

Rounding out Lenape’s pack were junior Hayley Conway and sophomore Rebecca Thomas.

Ocean City senior Alex Weber beat the field by 140 meters in the stud race at the South Jersey Shootout Saturday in Glassboro.

Weber, ninth in the Group 3 state meet last year, covered the Rowan University 5,000-meter course in 18:50, finishing 32 seconds ahead of second-place Kate Rathman, a sophomore at Cherokee.

Weber’s teammate, Nicolette Brady, won the 4-5-6-7 race with a 20:42, finishing 125 meters ahead of second-place Gianna Scarangelli of Egg Harbor.

Full results of all the races are on Tomahawk Timing’s site. Click here.

Emily Johnson’s season is off to a good start for Seton Hall. The Wildwood Crest native placed fourth overall and was Seton Hall’s No. 2 runner as the Pirates placed second in the Monmouth University Kickoff over the weekend.

Johnson, a senior co-captain who ran at Wildwood Catholic, ran 14:45 over 4,000 meters at Thompson Park in Jamesburg. She finished just 18 seconds behind overall winner and senior teammate Christina Rutkowski from Middletown South.

Take a look at Johnson’s year-to-year improvement on the same course in the same season-opening meet in each of the last four years:

2014: 36th 16:40
2015: 36th in 16:18
2016: 14th in 15:27
2017: 4th in 14:45

Not bad for someone who had PRs of 5:25 and 11:51 in high school!

Monmouth out-raced Seton Hall 30-49 to win the team title in the seven-team race, which had 76 finishers.

Next for Seton Hall is the Wolfie Invitational at Stony Brook, N.Y., on Saturday morning.

South Jersey products Cole Pschunder, Luke Wiley and Dom Munson finished in an 18-second span to help Rutgers open the 2017 cross country season with a one-point win over Lehigh in the Lehigh Invitational over the weekend in Bethlehem.

The meet was held on Lehigh’s lower Goodman campus, the site of the NCAA Division 1 Championships in 1979, 1983 and 1993.

Pschunder, a sophomore from Eastern Regional, finished second overall in the field of 88 runners in 18:38, Wiley, a senior from Williamstown, ran seventh in 18:51, and Munson, a junior from Timber Creek, placed eighth in 18:54.

Conor Murphy, a graduate of Allentown High — which is almost in South Jersey – was Rutgers’ second runner, placing fifth overall in 18:51.

Rutgers outscored Lehigh 31-32 in the five-team meet. Rutgers went 2-5-7-8-9 for 31 points, and Lehigh went 1-3-6-10-12 for 32 points. So Lehigh was up 20-22 after four runners, but Rutgers’ fifth runner, Patrick Walsh, displaced Lehigh’s fifth runner by three spots to decide the meet.

Lehigh’s Joe Inglis, a Moorestown High graduate, placed 20th overall and was Lehigh’s ninth runner, just four seconds from the Mountain Hawks’ scoring pack.

Rutgers will race at historic Van Cortland Park this coming Saturday in the Fordham Invitational.

Toledo sophomore Amanda Bakley placed third in the Mel Brodt Invitational Friday with a time of 18:17 over 5,000 meters on a cold, windy day in Bowling Green, Ohio.

What makes this performance even more notable is that it was the first cross country race of her life.

Bakley, who ran 5:11 and 10:59 at Pennsauken and was also an All-America steeplechaser, never ran cross country in high school but at least based on her first race seems to have found a home running the trails.

Bakley ran as fast as 10:59 as a Pennsauken junior when she placed second in the 3,200 at the South Jersey Group 3 sectionals behind Devon Grisbaum of Ocean City. Bakley went on to place eighth at states and 15th in the Meet of Champions as a wild card entry.

Bakley, who played soccer in high school and also was an avid ice hockey player, red-shirted her entire freshman year at Toledo.

The Mel Brodt Invitational was really just a dual meet between Toledo and Bowling Green, and Toledo swept the top three places, with teammates Olivia Chinn (18:06) and Stephanie Barlow (18:08) preceding Bakley across the line.

Bakley will be back in action next Friday when Toledo races at the Illinois State Country Financial Invitational in Normal, Ill.

Alicia Belko, a Stockton University senior from Rancocas Valley, opened the 2017 cross country season with a commanding win over the field Friday in a dual meet with Rowan on Stockton’s campus in Galloway Township.

Belko covered the 6,000-meter course in 23:20.1, finishing 265 meters ahead of second place.

Belko, an All-America last spring in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, doesn’t have track eligibility remaining and is in her final year of cross country.

Rowan, with a largely South Jersey team, won the team title 35-24 over Stockton.

For the Profs, Hannah Vendetta of Pitman placed second in 24:31, with Jessica Nguyen fourth in 24:48, Alyssa Sanders of Pitman fifth in 24:50, Jennifer Klavens from Washington Township sixth in 25:04 and Grace Capone of Bordentown seventh in 25:33.

Long-time South Jersey resident Norm Tate, a former Olympian who currently works with the jumpers and hurdlers for the powerhouse Rowan University track team, has been named head coach of the U.S. team that will compete in the World Junior Pan Am Games in Peru.

“I am honored to be selected as the head coach,” Tate said in a statement on Rowan’s web site. “It’s another step towards, hopefully, being chosen to coach at the Olympic Games. I have received positive evaluations every time I have coached for Team USA and I am hoping that continues.”

Tate has lived in South Jersey since 1986, when he left coaching and took a job at a casino in Atlantic City.

Tate, a three-time All-America at North Carolina Central University in the mid-1960s and Penn Relays MVP in 1964, went on to make the 1968 Olympic team in the triple jump. He was U.S. triple jump champ three times in a row — 1969, 1970 and 1971.

After 20 years working as an equal employment opportunity manager at Resorts International, Tate returned to college coaching in 2006 at Stockton University in nearby Galloway, where he was reunited with athletic director and 1968 Olympic teammate Larry James, and in 2009 he joined the staff at Rowan.

During his years at Resorts, Tate did coach numerous individuals, including Olympian Jack Pierce.

The Pan Am Juniors is the latest in a long list of national teams Tate has coached, including the U.S. teams that competed at the 2012 World Juniors, 2014 World Juniors and 2015 Pan Am Games. The meet runs Friday through Sunday in Lima, Peru.

Lauren Princz of Egg Harbor, who just finished eighth grade at Fernwood Avenue Middle School, ran 24.77 for 200 meters Saturday in the preliminaries of the AAU Region 2 National Qualifier at Stockton University in Galloway.

Princz, a national age-group champ this past winter in the 60-meter dash, won her heat by nearly 1 1/2 seconds. Moforeh Abinusawa of Ambler ran 25.01 in another heat.

Region 2 covers all of South Jersey and the eastern portion of Pennsylvania.

Princz’s time was faster than the fastest qualifying times in either the 15-16 age group or the 17-19 age group.

Only six girls in New Jersey ran as fast as 24.77 this past season, including four from South Jersey. The last New Jersey freshman to run that fast was Myasia Jacobs of Paramus Catholic in 2009.

The final is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

Princz also won the 400 in 58.60 and placed second in the 100 with a 12.65, behind only Abinusawa’s 12.32.  Princz actually ran 12.49 in the trials.

So her triple before one day of high school was 12.49, 24.77 and 58.60.

The only New Jersey girls of any age to run that fast for all three sprints at any point this year were Shakira Dancy of Winslow, Cecelia Gerstenbacher of Delsea and Katie DeFrancesco of St. John Vianney.

 

Pleasantville High School graduate Nia Ali, a former Meet of Champions winner and the Olympic silver medalist last year, placed second in the 100-meter hurdles Saturday at the USATF National Championships in Sacramento.

World record holder Kendra Harrison won in 12.60 out of lane 5 and Ali was second in 12.68 in neighboring lane 6, 2-100ths of a second ahead of Kendra Manning, third in 12.70. The final was run into a strong 1.7-meters-per-second wind.

Ali actually ran 12.52 in the second of two semifinals, No. 2 in the world this year behind only Jasmin Stowers, who ran 12.47 in the first semifinal, and only 4-100ths off her PR of 12.48, which she ran in Des Moines in 2013, and faster actually than her silver-medal time at last year’s Olympics, which was 12.59.

Harrison, Ali and Manning will make up the U.S. team that will compete in the IAAF World Championships in London Aug. 4-13. The women’s 100-meter hurdles trials and semis are scheduled for Aug. 11, with the final on Aug. 12.

Ali is a two-time world indoor champion and Olympic silver medalist, but this is the first time she’s made a U.S. team headed to the World Championships outdoors.