Boys capture Passaic Coaches Invitational title
By: Rudy Brandl
The Hillsborough High cross country program has become a very interesting story after just a few weeks of action.
For the second straight weekend, the HHS boys captured a team title at a big invitational meet when they edged Memorial for the Passaic Coaches Invitational crown at Garrett Mountain. The guys doing the damage had no varsity running experience a year ago.
This year’s Raider girls’ team has much the same makeup as last season’s boys’ unit. The squad features a bunch of young runners low on experience but high on ability, work ethic and potential.
Under the guidance of workout guru Rich Refi, this girls’ team promises to develop at a similar pace to the boys’ group that started this week with two team titles and a lopsided dual meet victory over Phillipsburg.
"I think we’re a lot like the boys’ team last year," said HHS sophomore Ashley Uniszkiewicz, who finished second in both the Roxbury and Passaic invitational races. "We’re a young team with mostly freshmen and sophomores. It’s going to take time for us to come together, but we’ll see big things in the future if we keep working hard."
"It’s a similar type of team I had last year with the boys," Refi added. "The boys were willing to listen and do things in practice. The girls are doing the same thing and they’ll keep improving. We’re not there yet, but we can be."
The Hillsborough boys edged Memorial by an 80-83 score to capture the Passaic Invitational Group 4 title Saturday. HHS won it with superior balance, taking the crown despite finishing behind Memorial runners in the first three spots.
After Memorial went 1-3-5 vs. Hillsborough head-to-head, the Raiders did a better job underneath. Mike Klueber led the way by placing sixth overall in a time of 16:58. Nick Vaccaro placed 11th in 17:24 and Matt Lunemann finished 16th in 17:43, with Russell Zaleski not far behind in 18th place in 17:58.
Joe Brennan gained the final individual medal and capped the team scoring by placing 30th in 18:22. John Folger (31st, 18:25) and Jared Lewinski (36th, 18:29) also competed for the winners.
"It was pretty tight coming down," Refi said. "I could tell it was going to be close. Memorial had three runners in front of our first three guys, but we snuck them in after that. We’re pretty deep. We beat a team that went to the All-Groups championship last year."
"It was exciting," Klueber said. "I saw Memorial there and I knew they were pretty good. Beating them gives us more confidence."
The girls are gaining more experience and confidence with every meet. They placed fourth in the team standings Saturday.
Running on a sore ankle, Uniszkiewicz finished second in 20:46. Classmate Jess Tsai (10th, 21:45) also returned home with a medal. Nancy Todaro (33rd, 23:54), Amanda Walzer (36th, 23:58) and Stacey Ablett (39th, 24:24) wrapped up the team scoring.
"It wasn’t my greatest race," Uniszkiewicz said. "I twisted my ankle at the beginning and I ran most of the race in pain. As soon as we got into the woods, it was nothing but rocks. It was really hard."
While Uniszkiewicz and Klueber didn’t run their races at peak performance level, they still had the determination to finish strong. In Klueber’s case, the sixth-place finish was crucial to the team’s victory.
"It was pretty fast at the beginning and I just ran with the pack minus Dan Deichert of Eastern," Klueber said. "He put in a few sprints so he wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to push it that early so I just let him go."
Refi normally maps out a strategy to win team titles at big meets, but he wasn’t as focused on that Saturday. The championship came as a pleasant surprise.
"We trained hard Monday, had a dual meet Wednesday and worked hard Thursday," Refi said. "I just wanted to see the kids be competitive. It worked out nicely that we won. We weren’t pointing at it. We won’t do that until the end of the year."
That’s when the Raider boys will be in the hunt for some special things, like top honors in Somerset County, the Skyland Conference and Central Jersey Group 4. If the girls keep up the current pace, don’t be surprised to find them near the top as well.
NOTES The Raiders won two more team titles and brought home several medals from Garrett Mountain … the novice boys also placed first, with Kani Brown (4th, 18:40), Eric Szabocsik (11th, 19:05), Eric Mueller (12th, 19:07), Chris Dennis (13th, 19:09), Fred Kain (15th, 19:16) and Chris Brower (19th, 19:22) all earning medals … the freshman girls won the team crown behind Ingrid Mellor (2nd, 14:13), Jessica Du (5th, 14:36), Kristen Pappalardo (9th, 15:20), Maggie Henry (33rd, 16:13) and Jess Hoyer (37th, 16:29) … the novice girls took fifth place as a team, with Emily Geng (14th, 24:46) and Diana Marazzo (15th, 24:51) earning medals … Dale Nunn won a medal for the freshman boys, running 13:02 to finish 29th in his race.