Crawford, Melendez star at Skyland meet
By: Rudy Brandl
The Hillsborough High girls have become one of the most dominant track and field programs in New Jersey over the past five years. Last week, their home town fans finally got to see them win a big meet on their new track.
With the home track under construction last year, the HHS teams competed on the road and traveled far away for most of their big meets. Both the HHS boys and girls christened their new track in style by capturing the Skyland Conference titles last week.
Two days later, the long-awaited dedication ceremony finally took place when the Raiders swept Phillipsburg in dual meet action Thursday. The ceremony had been slated for the April 1 season opener but postponed due to bad weather twice.
The Raider girls continued to excel, winning championship meets at Hunterdon Central (Skyland Conference Relays), Franklin (Somerset County Relays) and the Randolph Relays. They enjoyed a happy homecoming last week.
"It was really fun running at our new track," said HHS senior star Erin Crawford, who won three titles to lead the way. "It was awesome. So many people from our school came out. It was really exciting."
Crawford, who scored a meet-best 38 points, locked horns with Franklin star Jenna Harris in the 400 dash and 100 hurdles. Crawford (14.7) edged Harris (14.8) in the hurdles but finished second in the 400 (57.6).
"The 100 hurdles was just awesome," said Crawford, who also had to contend with Warren Hills standout Colleen Farrell. "I knew it was going to be really, really close. That’s my best time ever and now I might be running it at sectionals."
Crawford didn’t like her start but regrouped throughout the race and eventually outran Harris and Farrell to the tape. She rolled to much easier first places in the 400 hurdles (1:02.3) and triple jump (36-9¼).
"I started to come back and just ran it in really hard after the last hurdle," she said. "I knew it was going to be that close."
The meet was also fairly close, but Hillsborough (117½) wound up over 20 points in front of Franklin (96). Crawford had plenty of help from her teammates, most notably versatile junior Jenizah Melendez and the talented distance duo of junior Ashley Uniszkiewicz and freshman Allison Marcsisin.
Melendez became a Skyland Conference outdoor champion for the first time when she emerged as the class of the javelin competition. Melendez was the only female in the competition to surpass the 100-foot mark, firing just shy of her personal-best with a 112-8 that easily won the title.
"I was really happy with javelin, not just me but also my teammates," Melendez said, referring to Courtney Siegel (98-9) and Colleen Maloney (95-0), who finished third and fifth, respectively. "Last year, nobody in our school placed in javelin. This year, we went 1-3-5 so we made history."
Melendez has become very consistent in the javelin, hitting over 112 feet three times in recent weeks. She’s hoping to reach the 120-foot mark before the end of the season. The HHS junior also finished second in the shot put (34-3¼) and fourth in the triple jump (33-6¼) and long jump (16-5¾) to finish the day with 26 points.
"I didn’t know what the score was, but when I found out it was close, I was really hoping my points would carry us somewhere," Melendez said.
Melendez said she felt lonely in the shot put but had plenty of company in the scoring column in the javelin and triple jump. Senior Caitlin Kosec finished second (34-8½) behind Crawford in the triple jump, so the Raiders produced 24 points in that event.
Hillsborough compiled 26 more points in the distance events with Uniszkiewicz winning the 3,200 title in a time of 11:24.7. Marcsisin wasn’t far back in 11:26.0, but her more impressive performance came in the 1,600, where she took third in an amazing 5:10.1. Uniszkiewicz placed fifth in the 1,600 (5:13.4).
Other HHS points were provided by Kosec in the 100 hurdles (4th, 16.0) and 400 hurdles (tie for 6th, 1:08.4), Nicole Humphrey in the long jump (6th, 15-7¼) and pole vault (5th, 8-6) and Eileen Cafferty in the pole vault (4th, 9-0).
"We came out and everybody did their job," Crawford said. "This gives us so much confidence for the rest of the season."
EXTRA LAPS The HHS girls improved to 5-0 in the regular season with a 111-29 home rout of Phillipsburg last Thursday … Crawford won four events, taking the 200 (26.8), 400 dash (59.5), 400 hurdles (1:05.4) and triple jump (34-10½), while Melendez prevailed in the long jump (15-10), shot put (33-11) and javelin (112-5)… other event winners were Uniszkiewicz in the 800 (2:26.4), Marcsisin in the 1,600 (5:48), Lauren Van Cleef in the 3,200 (12:48.6), Kosec in the 100 hurdles (16.2), Inna Zayonts in the high jump (4-6) and the 4×400 relay team of Kaitlyn Adams, Jess Tsai, Amanda Wadams and Katie King (4:22.4) … the Raiders will try to make it 7-0 at tomorrow’s tri-meet with Franklin and North Hunterdon.

