BY MIKE WHITE
Staff Writer
JERSEY CITY — The Jackson High School boys indoor track team captured three events and then overcame a late blunder last Saturday en route to winning the Ocean County Relays at the Armory in Jersey City.
The Jags had a total 42 points with one event left to run when members of the 4×400 relay squad failed to hand in there seed card in time for the race. Officials ruled Jackson could not compete in the event.
Luckily, however, the mistake had no impact as the Jags 42 points stood up to edge out Toms River East (TRE), which finished as runner-up with 36.
TRE failed to take advantage of the Jags’ gaffe. The Raiders 4×400 team was disqualified following a false start.
“We had a pretty good meet even with the mistake,” Jackson coach Walter Krystopik said. “The kids said they didn’t hear the announcement to turn in the card. We’re extremely fortunate it didn’t come back to haunt us. We had left the door wide open for Toms River East.”
The Jags opened the meet by capturing the shuttle hurdles relay. The team of John Louro, Joe Arneth, Bob Cole and Dongoh Shin won the race in a time of 33.2, just fast enough to edge out second-place Manchester.
In fact, Shin was a last-minute replacement for Kyle Nagy, who could not compete in the hurdles because of limited movement in his leg.
Krystopik praised the effort of Shin.
“He had no idea he was running that race,” Krystopik said. “He stepped up and did a great job for us. I waited until the last minute to enter him in there. I wanted to see how Nagy’s leg was feeling. He was having trouble bringing the trail leg through, so we decided it was best not to run him in that event.”
Paul Kostetsky, Greg Emmons, Mike Emmons and Anthony Meleo won the 4×800 in a time of 8:54.0.
The week before the Ocean County Relays, this group turned in its best time of the season. Krystopik decided to keep the same runners together.
“We had been platooning in different guys,” Krystopik said. “But last week they ran a very solid race and we decided to keep them together for this event.”
Nagy returned to run the leadoff leg on Jackson’s winning 4×200-relay squad. Arneth, Louro and Stefan Grussett followed Nagy and the quartet finished with a time of 1:39.
“Nagy was fine to run the 200,” Krystopik said. “He just couldn’t run the hurdles. We used him where he was going to be able to help us.”
Donald Murphy, Tito Nurdeen, Cole and Kostetsky combined to place fifth in the sprint medley relay with a time of 4:11.6.
Jackson was second in the distance medley relay. Monroe Kearns, Eric Brown, Meleo and Chris Carle posted a time of 11:40.2.
Krystopik cited the fine effort of thrower Phil Muldah, who tossed the shot put over 44 feet for the first time this season.
“He just kept getting better and better as the season wore on,” Krystopik said. “Here’s a guy who was a football player, and he came out for the team to stay in shape, and he turns out to have a lot of talent.”