Florence, BRHS track and field teams also played last week
By: Sean Moylan
Yale bound superstar Erica Davis is making her last days at Northern Burlington County Regional High School count.
The senior’s latest heroics included wins in the shot put (39 feet 11 ½ inches) and the discus (129 feet 5 inches) at Saturday’s Burlington County Open held at Maple Shade.
Davis’ margin of victory in the discus (17 feet) was a massive one. And she thew the shot over a foot farther than her nearest competitor.
After suffering a rare loss last week, NBC’s Aleyna Schafer was back to her winning ways in the javelin event with a 115 foot 7 inch hurl, which was over 4 feet better than any other female athlete at the BC Open.
NBC’s Ashley Platz placed third in the high jump with a 5-foot leap.
Furthermore, Nikki Salenetri ran a 2:28.42 time in the 800 to garner sixth place.
As a team, NBC took fourth with 37 points, only the Burlington Country Juggernauts (Willingboro, Shawnee and Cherokee) placed ahead of it.
In the meantime, NBC boys’ team was also doing well with a 10th place (13 points) finish, which was highlighted by Kiel Ridolfino’s third-place finish in the pole vault (11 feet 6 inches) and Darnell Smith’s fourth-place performance in the 100 (11:39 seconds). Along the way, NBC’s 4 x 400 relay team came in sixth.
And Troy Norton came in fifth in the 400 meter hurdles with a solid 57.91 second time.
Many of the NBC girls did well at Monday’s invitation only, Eastern Regional Relay Classic (the Elite Relay) held at Willingboro.
Latasha Leake won the high jump (5 feet 4 inches) while Davis won the discus event (132 feet 8 inches) and took second in the shot put with a tremendous 40 foot 10 ¾ inches throw. Schafer placed second in the javelin (110 feet 8 inches). NBC’s distance medley squad took second with a fine (13:39.30) time and its 4 x 800 team captured third with a 10:52.94 mark.
Both NBC squads look ready for this weekend’s Sectionals (Friday and Saturday) at Buena. Don’t be surprised if Davis, Schafer, Leake and the gang shatter some more records.
FLORENCE
The Florence Township Memorial High School girls’ varsity track and field team may not have won the first meet in its history on Wednesday (May 14) versus Riverside, but the Flashes nevertheless showed great potential and promise during the Rams 77-47 victory.
"I thought the girls did great for a first meet against a divisional foe," said Florence Coach Mike Flynn. "We took a lot of seconds."
The Flashes also took a couple of firsts. Amanda Zacharkow quickly set Florence’s record in the javelin with her fine first place 87 foot 8 inch toss. And Florence’s Shellise Jenkins established herself as a force to be reckoned with in the shot put when she made an excellent 34 foot 7 inch throw to win the event.
Jenkins performed even better in Saturday’s Burlington Country Open when she unleashed a powerful 37 foot 7 inch throw to capture fourth place. The Florence girls’ team finished with 4 points. Not bad for a club that only "Officially" started less than two weeks ago.
Of course, the Florence "boys’ team has been known for its great throwers and Bryan Miller has been one of the best. Miller threw the shot 46 feet 4 ¾ inches to place fifth overall at the County Open.
Moreover, Miller won the shot and the discus to lead Florence to a 64-58 victory over Riverside on Tuesday (May 12). In that meet, Florence’s Joe Havens won the javelin and teammate Chad Kessler placed. Florence’s Joey Oros ran strong races in both the 100 and 200 to place.
Furthermore, Florence’s 4 x 400 relay team of Jim Melink, Dave Havens, Murjani Rawls and Abree Jones also won. Laron Thomas won the high jump and medalled in several other events.
The Florence boys’ team’s regular season is over, but it will compete in Friday’s sectionals at Egg harbor. At 4-2 Florence had an outstanding regular season. Ironically, while the Florence girls are also scheduled to compete in Sectionals they still have half of their regular season left to play.
They were scheduled to have played at Palmyra this past Tuesday.
Today (Thursday) they are scheduled to compete against Burlington City and McCorriston. The joy of it all is keeping up with all the school records which are being shattered with each new meet.
BRHS
If the Bordentown Regional High School boys’ varsity track and field team hadn’t scheduled its Senior Class trip the same week as the Burlington County Open (this past Saturday), the Scotties would have had a very realistic chance to have scored several more points in the distance races (Steve DiLemme), the pole vault (Mike Malone), and the sprints and hurdles (Manny Omeni).
Nonetheless, the Scotties’ greatest star Rob Novak did compete and the sophomore sensation was the biggest reason Bordentown scored a dozen points to place 11th at the big event held at Maple Shade.
Novak placed 5th in the 800 with an excellent time of 1:59.37. He also ran an excellent 9:53 time in the 3200. And he ran on Bordentown’s 4 x 400 relay team (Kelvin Barnett, Mike Steffen (a 52.9 second split time), Novak and Fred Mendenhall) which placed third with a terrific 3:32.08 time.
Barnett placed 4th on the 200 meter dash with a 22.87 second mark.
"That’s (22.87 seconds) a good time. He’s (Barnett) very fast in the 200," noted Bordentown Coach Charlie Miller. "We would have performed even better if we had all of our seniors."
On the Scotties girls’ side, Lenore Crumel put on another great show. She was the runner-up in the 100 with a fine time of 12.7 seconds and she placed 4th in the 200 (26.44).
Bordentown’s Brooke Bercari also did extremely well placing 5th on the 100 meter hurdles (17.79 seconds) and 6th in the 400 meter hurdles (1:12.45).
Bordentown finished in 10th place overall with 15 points, despite the absence of some seniors.
On Monday, the Scotties boys’ team set some records at the Willingboro Eastern Regional Relay Classic.
Bordentown’s distance medley relay team won with a record setting 10.53 time.
"That (10:53) was 10 seconds better than we’ve ever done," said Coach Miller, who was happy to see DiLemme (a 3:23 1200), Barnett (an incredible 50.7 second time in the 400), Mendenhall (a 2:05 mark in the 800) and Novak (a 4:32 mile) running so well.
Bordentown’s sprint medley team (Steffen, Omeni, Barnett and Novak) broke the school record by roughly 4 seconds with a 3:37 5th place time.
Steffen, only a freshman, ran a fine 52.9 time in the 400 while Barnett was flying in the 200 (21 seconds). Of course, Novak ran his usual great 800 meter race (1:58).
In the 4 x 800 Bordentown ran a solid 8:35 time. Nickos Angelopoulos’ 2:10 time was one of the highlights. Bordentown’s Malone placed fifth in the pole vault event with a 12-foot vault. Both Bordentown squads are scheduled to compete in Friday and Saturday’s Sectionals at Egg Harbor. They should do well.

