Hillsborough track teams fall short in Group 4

Crawford, Melendez, Vaccaro, Tirado qualify for M of C

By: Rudy Brandl
   
   The Hillsborough High winter track athletes certainly didn’t have their greatest day in Sunday’s State Group 4 Championships at Princeton University’s Jadwin Gym. While it wasn’t their best performance, it was still pretty darn good.
   Some of the experts had picked the HHS girls to capture the team title. Many expected superstar Erin Crawford to win a few events. Most figured the Raider boys would make more noise than they did.
   Despite the fact that none of these things materialized, Hillsborough head coach Rich Refi wasn’t disappointed. In fact, Refi felt much worse the previous weekend when both of his teams came agonizingly close to winning their first titles at the State Group 4 Relay Championships.
   "Things just didn’t fall into place," Refi said afterward. "They didn’t have a bad day. It’s just Group 4. We moved a lot of people to the Meet of Champions."
   The Hillsborough girls finished fifth in the team standings with 20 points, while the boys placed 14th with eight points. Several Raider athletes clinched spots in the Meet of Champions, while many others will have to wait for wild card entries depending on the results of the Groups 2 and 3 meets in early February. The Meet of Champions is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 16.
   Crawford, the defending Group 4 champ in the 400 and 800, didn’t repeat but scored 12 individual points and anchored the 4×400 relay team to third place and six more points. Junior Jenizah Melendez set a school-record in the shot put with a throw of 36 feet, 9¾ inches that was good for fifth place and her first trip to the big show.
   "I didn’t even make it to the finals last year, so this is a big deal for me," said Melendez, who broke her own school record with the big throw. "They’re both nice accomplishments. I never thought I would set a school record."
   Crawford found herself in some tough company in the 400 and 800. Different runners from Winslow beat her in both events and the South Jersey school captured the team title with 29 points. Eastern (28), Jackson (27) and Trenton (22) also finished ahead of the Raiders.
   "They (Winslow) deserved it, there’s no question," Refi said. "Bobby Jackson’s a great coach."
   "We all tried our best but there was so much competition," Crawford said. "It was so hard this year. I just had an OK day. It wasn’t my best. It wasn’t like last year."
   Crawford ran in the most grueling event of the day, a crowded and talented 800-meter field. She had trouble getting out and running her race through the pushing and shoving and wound up finishing fourth in 2:23.24.
   "The 800 was so physical," Crawford said. "We were all getting shoved and bumped. It was so hard to move up. I was trying to get out but everybody was together the whole time."
   Crawford started the day by finishing second in the 400 meters in 59.30. She had to run a total of five races Sunday, adding a 55 hurdles trial and final – where she took eighth in 9.01 – and the anchor leg of the 4×400 relay.
   Hillsborough had hoped the final event would be more meaningful but ran a great race anyway. Lauren Kloss led off with a 61.5 split. Eileen Cafferty (62.8) and Yaneisha Warrick (64.1) followed and Crawford (59.9) brought it home. The Raiders won the unseeded section in 4:08.37 and bumped all but two teams out of the fast heat.
   Seniors Nick Vaccaro and Hector Tirado did all the scoring for the HHS boys. Vaccaro finished fifth in the 1,600 in 4:27.45, while Tirado took third in the shot put (49-7). Both boys felt they could have done better but were happy to move on.
   Tirado clinched his first trip to the big show by consistently hitting in the 47-foot range to qualify for the finals. He moved up a notch into third place on his final attempt.
   "It’s a new experience for me," Tirado said. "I feel like I could’ve done better, but it was good enough to take third so I’m OK with that. I’m satisfied just to be going to the Meet of Champions."
   Vaccaro, who will make his sixth appearance at the Meet of Champs combining his three athletic seasons, didn’t feel quite the same way. He was most happy with earning another chance to run against the same competition again in hopes of improving his time and placement.
   "Even though I know all those guys are really good, I was pretty upset after the race," Vaccaro said. "I still thought I had a shot to win. I didn’t stick with them like I should so I was playing catch-up the whole race. I’m happy I’m going to get another shot at the Meet of Champions."
   Vaccaro, Tirado, Crawford, Melendez and the girls’ relay team have officially qualified for the Meet of Champs. Several others will have to wait to see if they earned wild card berths.
   That list includes Kloss in the 800 (7th, 2:23.69), freshman Allison Marcsisin in the 1,600 (9th, 5:28.47), Ashley Uniszkiewicz in the 1,600 (11th, 5:30.76) and 3,200 (7th, 11:39.98), freshman Kelda Nelson in the 3,200 (12th, 12:10.03), Nicole Humphrey in the high jump (10th, 4-10), Mike Klueber in the 3,200 (7th, 9:49.80), Bryan Fox in the high jump (7th, 6-2), Jim Morley in the high jump (10th, 6-0), Joe Brennan in the 1,600 (12th, 4:39.16) and the 4×400 relay team (10th, 3:37.02) of Tony Flores, Franklin Andreyko, Aneil Sahota and Mike Barberio.
   "We still have to wait two weeks to see what happens in Groups 2 and 3, but we have a lot of people waiting in the wings," Refi said. "It would have been nice to win a state title, but we’re still a good team."