Netters:
Christian Brothers Academy had a sort of milestone yesterday when it
won its 248th consecutive dual meet, breaking the all-sport recoid for a NJ
HS. (Not an insignificant feat, considering that Passaic HS here still holds
an apparently unbreakable national basketball mark of 157 games---some put
it at 160---back in the early 20s.) The record CBA broke was held by (ugh) a
girls' volleyball team from track power Columbia (it was set partly in the
Joetta Clark era and, of course, the track team could probably have beaten
the volleyball team with a week's practice; Joetta's teammate Gail Bryant
would have been an awesome spiker.
The real milestone will come in 2004 when CBA breaks the National CC
dual meet mark of 265 held by Blackstone-Miller of Massachusetts. It took
that school just 18 years to compile that mark; it will take more than 30
for CBA to break it since the Colts run a very limited dual schedule, mostly
with second-stringers, as was the case in yesterday's 15-50 defeat of Ocean
Twp.
The only close call since being shut out by Red Bank in 1973 came in
1981 (I was told that was the year, it may be off by one or two) when it
took a sixth-man comparison to give the Colts a victory over a St. John
Vianney team. Tom Heath has coached right through the streak; oddly, the
coach of that Vianney team, Jim Schlentz, came back to Monmouth County a
couple of years ago to coach at the new Colts Neck HS, right down the road
from CBA. Though the two are both in the Shore Conference, they are in
different divisions and meet only in the county and overall open conference
meets each year. Schlentz is the husband (and coach) of leading master's
woman miler Madalyn Noe.
In another NJ note, a third freshman star, Brittany Bynoe of
Willingboro, debuted with a victory in a dual meet with North Burlington
this week. Jenn Ennis of Roxbury is unfortunately sidelined with a case of
mono and will probably miss the entire season. One of the four, Jen Clausen
of Jackson, will be with her team in a side race at the Great American
carnival.
Ed Grant
