New Jersey Meet of Champions
Ed Grant's Report
11/20/99 at Holmdel Park
Netters:
On an unseasonally warm (nearly 70 degrees) and humid day at Holmdel County Park, pre-meet favorites Brian Kerwin of Christian Broethers and
Erin Donohue of Haddonfield won the New Jersey HS all-group titles. Team honors went to
CBAs nationally ranked team and to Ridgewood in the girls' race.
The weather probably prevented CBA from setting a team time record for the Holmdel course. The five boys averaged 16:24.8 as opposed to a 16:18 for the Colts' 1982 team---which that year lost the AG title to Bernards' No. 2 performance (CBA ran its record in a county meet).
Kerwin duelled with Walton Kingsbery of Red Bank (whose older brother is a CBA grad and whose younger brother will enter that school next fall) in the hills, but came out with a safe lead
and won by 60 yards in 15:52. Third place went to the early race leader (and pre-season favorite for the title) Brian Skelly of Washington Twp, with Jeff DiChiara (3rd brother to run for CBA with another coming in in 2001) 4th. Andrew Filachek and Brian Hoffman were also in the top 10 for the Colts.
The CBA score of 31 points is the lowest ever in the meet and easily outdstanced Paul VI, which edged Cherokee for 2nd, 95-104. (CBA and Paul VI have won every AG title but one since 1986 and that lone title also went to a Parochial school, Don Bosco Prep. Bernards is the last public school to win in 1985.
The girls' race was a repeat of the Gr. II event last week as Donohue held off Lily Thomas of Somerville to win by 15 yards in 18:44, 14 seconds slower than in the cooler weather seven days ago. Beth Androski of Hackensack and Lindsey Gallo of Howell were also under the benchmark time of 19:00 for the dificult 5K course.
The girls' team race had a dramatic finish. Ridgewood appeared sailing to an ealy win in the highly competitive race with four finishers (including its 5th girl) in the first 55. But JUlia Brownell ran into trouble coming down the stretch out of the hills, fell once, got up, then fell again five yards from the finish. Unable to rise, she crawled forward and touched the line, thinking that was enough. of course, it wasn't, so, after enocuragement from the sideleines, she moved her torso over the line. She was given 80th place, but that was at best a guess. However, her heroics turned out to be unnecessarywhen favored Hopewell Valley had a rare poor race from one of its top pair and wound up third (losing 2nd on a tie-breaker to Moorestown)---the 6th Ridgewood girl's place would have been enough for a narrow victory.
