TRACK & FIELD NOTEBOOK
By: Rudy Brandl
HHS girls’ head track and field coach Rich Refi called it a "great weekend for Hillsborough track" after the Raiders thrilled their home fans with a sweep of the Central Jersey Group 4 Championships.
There were so many subplots and story lines developing all over the track and the field, and not just at the Hillsborough High complex.
Former HHS star Tierra Hicks, a key member of the last girls’ teams to win CJ 4 titles in 1998 and 1999, won a national championship. The Montclair State College senior broke the one-minute mark for the first time in her career in the 400 hurdles, winning the event in a time of 59.22 seconds.
Hicks won her first Division 3 national title at St. Lawrence University in Caton, N.Y. after finishing second last year. The 1999 Hillsborough graduate is pursuing a career in education and may someday return to work at the place her fabulous athletic career began.
The HHS girls knocked off three-time defending champion Trenton at last weekend’s Central Jersey Group 4 Championships. It marked the first time in school history that the HHS boys and girls swept sectional titles at the same meet. The boys had previously won in 1995 and 2000, while the girls took the crown in the last two years of Hicks’ stellar career.
Former Raider standout Kristen Meyer, now a sophomore at the University of Connecticut, was a freshman and sophomore on those two championship squads. The HHS girls were solid in Meyer’s final two years of high school, but loaded Trenton squads prevailed at the sectionals.
Meyer left high school with every individual distance record, but freshman Allison Marcsisin and junior Ashley Uniszkiewicz are in hot pursuit of those marks as the HHS program continues to manufacture star performers.
Three school records were established last weekend, and all three former record-holders were also competing. Franklin Andreyko broke his own school long jump mark with a winning leap of 22 feet, 8½ inches, the identical distance he posted to finish sixth at last year’s NJSIAA Meet of Champions.
Nick Vaccaro eclipsed good friend and teammate Mike Klueber’s record in the 3,200, finishing second in 9:30.9. Klueber also improved upon his former standard with a 9:31.7 that placed third.It’s ironic that Vaccaro now holds the 3,200 mark because Klueber is actually the stronger long distance man while Vaccaro’s best event is the mile. Both Raider stars will try to run even faster at this weekend’s State Group 1 Championships in Egg Harbor.
Vaccaro plans to run both the 3,200 and the 1,600, where he placed in last year’s Meet of Champs with a school-record time of 4:17.73, while Klueber may decide to stay fresh for the 3,200.
Eileen Cafferty also broke one of her teammates’ records in the girls’ pole vault. Cafferty soared to her first major meet title with a 9-7 effort that added one inch to Nicole Humphrey’s school standard. Cafferty and Humphrey are both underclassmen who will continue to push each other toward 10 feet.
Both Raider teams really beefed up on points in some of the newer scoring events. The girls featured three different scorers in the pole vault and triple jump, while the boys also had three place-winners in the triple jump.
HHS boys’ head coach Jim O’Connor, a veteran with significant experience teaching the triple jump, has given his athletes an edge. Ebony Foster won the girls’ state title at last year’s Meet of Champions and Erin Crawford is currently ranked at the top of this year’s performance list.
The school record-holders on hand at the HHS complex weren’t confined to the competitors. Former Hillsborough pole vault star Mike Minetti, who still holds the school record (14-1) he set back in 1995, helped guide four vaulters into the State Group 4 Championships.
Minetti, who placed fifth at the Meet of Champs after helping the Raiders win the sectional team title in 1995, also coached his younger brother David, who matched his personal-best with a 12-0 last weekend. David Minetti and Adam Mallet didn’t make the cut, but Nick Confuorto joined Cafferty, Humphrey and freshman Robin Friedman as qualifiers for this weekend’s pole vault competition in Egg Harbor.

