The Cherokee Boys Cross Country Team took home its fifth consecutive sectional championship, and its thirteenth overall on Saturday at Dream Park! Thirteen is a South Jersey Group 4 record and almost double the number for the next closest team (Toms River North with seven).
At race time, it was 75 and sunny. The unseasonably warm weather, made racing even more challenging, but the team stayed focused on the goal and did not let the conditions affect them.
Nick Kuenkel led the team, running away from the pack over the last third of the race to win his second consecutive sectional title! Nick is the first Cherokee runner to win back-to-back sectional championships since Alex Yersak won three in a row from 2005-2007!
Behind Nick, Bobby Poplau and Liam Tindall were both having great races of their own! With a strong kick over the last 600 meters, Bobby moved into second place while Liam ran a consistently strong race throughout to take fourth! Their times of 15:36 and 15:39 were the fourth and sixth fastest times of the day from all the races, and moved them to fourth and fifth on the all-time Cherokee Dream Park list behind Ethan Wechsler - 15:13, Nick Kuenkel - 15:23 and Patrick Ditmars - also 15:23.
With Logan Bromley out with a quad strain, Anthony DiBattista, our eighth man at the Olympic Conference Meet, was added to the sectional line-up. He did not disappoint! Anthony ran an aggressive race from the start, stayed focused throughout, and ran tough over the last mile to finish as our fourth man (14th) with a new 5k PR despite the unseasonably warm conditions! Two seconds later, our fifth man, freshman Ben Realley, crossed the line one place behind Anthony (15th) to secure the win, a 33-point victory over runner-up, Cherry Hill East! Sixth man, Ben Weiner was only three places behind Realley and was five spots in front of East’s fifth man!
Seventh man, Dom Pileri, went into the race with a strained patella tendon which hampered his racing. Although not his best race due to the knee issue, Dom stayed focused throughout and finished in 37th, one place behind East’s seventh man and in front of the fifth man on all but three of the seventeen teams in the field (Cherokee, CH East, Toms River North).
Our five-man average time of 15:54.96 was the fourth fastest in course history (despite the heat!), behind our 15:48.06 average from last year and Haddonfield’s 15:52.43 and 15:52.70 from the last two sectional meets!
The team now turns its focus to the Group 4 State Championship at Holmdel Park this Saturday, November 4th at 10:30 am.
Thanks to Coach Shaklee for the write-up and congrats to him, Coach Thompson, and the rest of the Cherokee Chiefs for the win.
Coming later this week (or next week, perhaps) a rundown of the Cherokee Lady Chiefs victory at the Sectional meet!
Details of 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: