Netters:
"Conversion" was the key to success for several teams at New
Jersey's mammoth Shore Coaches invitation meet yesterday at Holmdel Couny
Park
This meet is the annual preview to our state championships which are
held on the same course. Like the state meet, there are six races for boys
and six for girls, but the marchups aren't quite the same because public and
non-public schools are lumped together and the draw decided strictly on
school size.
The two fastest team times of the day were posted by Gr. II schools,
Haddonfield for the boys (in a driving rain) and Moorestown for the girls.
The fastest boy individual was Marc Pelerin of Cherokee at 16:00 and the
fastest girl Jesse Mizzone of Passaic Valley who posted an 18:22 in the same
race won by Moorestown which came in lighter rain but after the couirse had
been thoroughly drenched by the earlier downpour., (By day's end, it was a
sublit sky with 70-degree temeperatures).
Haddonfield had a 1-2 photo finish from Chris Platt and Skip Stiles,
a senior in his first CC season (he played football last year), in 16:21 and
a third from ex-soccer player Breton Bonette. They are missing the 4th
member of their crack 4MR team from last spring, but he should be back soon.
Old Bridge almost matched their team time winning the A race, but has no
aces ion the hole.
Moorestown was led by the Hughes sisters, Megan and Colleen, with
the usual lead runner, Kelsey Rinehart, running in the 5th slot yesterday.
Southern Ocean took the girls' A race with two soccer transfers,
Kegga Schaffer, who ran 2nd to teammate Kathryn Wardenski, and Lauren Lewis,
who finished 12th. Lewis was one of the state's top 800 runners last spring,
but this is Schaffer's first second in the sport.
Voorhees, whcih finished 2nd to Moorestown and had the 2nd best team
time of the day, also had a soccer convert in its lineup, Elizabeth Wort,
who finished 5th just behind teammate Sara Best.
Christian Brothers, which has won the last six NJ AG titles, won the
boys' B race, but its team average was more than 30 seconds behind
Haddonfield and Old Bridge. This is obviously a building year for the Colts,
who had sophs as its 2nd and 3rd men. The Colts also won big in the frosh
race and may promote at least one of those runners to the varsity before
season end.
Cheroke chose to run its top frosh, Sean McLaughlin in the class
race, which he won handily, and was only 3rd in the A race to Old Bridge and
Hunterdon Central. Even with McLaughlin it has obvious 5th man problems,
though its top pair of Pelerin and Keith Krieger were the fastest on the
course by about four seconds over the Haddonfield duo.
Ed Grant
