The boys cross country team knew that winning a State Group 4 title would be a long shot at best. After all, Westfield put six runners in front of our second man at the Shore Coaches Invitational, and a seventh in front of our third.
Even with a good race, closing that gap was unlikely, especially since we were still missing our fourth man, Logan Bromley. And so, our focus was more on running the best race we could. If so, we would accept the results.
There were ten teams in our race ranked in the top twenty in the state so, just qualifying for the Meet of Champions would be challenging. Looking back, we are happy to report that the boys were up to the challenge! Cherokee placed third with 110 points, behind Westfield - 54 and Ridgewood - 104.
With the new qualifying procedure for MOC’s, only the winners of each race qualify automatically along with eight wildcard teams (based on five-man average times). We were the second-fastest non-winning team (behind Ridgewood) to easily gain a wildcard spot!
Of the seven Cherokee runners who raced, six of them established new Holmdel PR’s!
First man, Nick Kuenkel, while not setting a new PR, still managed a very fast 15:47 on the tough Holmdel course to finish fifth in, far-and-away, the strongest field of the day. Out of the other five races, only two other runners managed to run faster. Going into next week’s Meet of Champions, Nick is focused on improving his performance and challenging the top runners in the state!
Liam Tindall continued his outstanding season with another strong race, placing fifteenth and knocking 35 seconds off of his previous Holmdel best set at this year’s Shore Coaches Meet. Liam’s time of 16:15 puts him at number twelve on the All-Time Cherokee Holmdel Park List.
Bobby Poplau finished a few spots behind Liam in 21st place, knocking eighteen seconds off of his previous Holmdel best set last year at the Meet of Champions! His time of 16:21 ties him for sixteenth on the All-Time Cherokee Holmdel list!
Freshman, Ben Realley, was next for the team with an excellent race to finish in 28th place. Ben’s time of 16:39 was the second fastest freshman time of the meet and established a new Cherokee Freshman Record (Keith Krieger - 17:15, 1999) while putting Ben 27th on the All-Time Cherokee Holmdel List!
Rounding out the scoring for the team was junior, Ben Weiner, who knocked 28 seconds off of his previous best Holmdel time from this year’s Shore Coaches Meet to finish 48th! Ben’s time of 17:05 ties him for 49th on the Cherokee Holmdel List.
Behind Ben, our sixth and seventh runners, Silas Matteson and Anthony DiBatista, both set new Holmdel PR’s! Silas knocked 31 seconds off of his previous best at Holmdel while Anthony saw a small improvement of two seconds over his time from last year’s state meet. Silas and Anthony’s times put them at 88th and 93rd on the Cherokee Holmdel List.
The team is now focused on a good week of preparation for the season’s last competition, the State Meet of Champions.
As an alum, you can help support current Cherokee cross country and track athletes. Our Alumni Association is currently awarding multiple scholarships to current seniors in track and cross country each season.
On top of that, we are actively helping support Cherokee student-athletes with travel to non-NJSIAA sponsored events, like NXN, Footlocker, Oregon Relays, Indoor Nationals & Outdoor Nationals.
To donate, click here:
For more on Cherokee’s run at the State Meet, check out Reuban Frank’s article.
For those with a Pro account on Milesplit, check out the race video.
Details for our alumni party:
Thursday, December 28th
6:30 pm
The Mile Pub (212 N Black Horse Pike, Runnemede, NJ 08078)
$60 per person, including food and hospitality. Cash bar.
*We will have a signup link coming in our next post + you can reserve/pay at any point using this Venmo link: