Refi: team young and balanced
By: Rudy Brandl
The Hillsborough High girls enter the 2005 outdoor track and field campaign with three very impressive winning streaks. Two of them will be tested within the first few weeks of the season.
Hillsborough took a 51-dual meet win streak into Tuesday’s opener against Phillipsburg. The team will face potent rivals Franklin and Hunterdon Central as part of tri-meets the next two weeks. Although they don’t place much emphasis on dual meets, the HHS girls keep winning them.
The team also comes into the season with incredible seven-year holds on the Somerset County relay and individual championship meets. The county relays will be held April 16 at Franklin, while the individual championships are set for May 12 at Hillsborough.
Veteran HHS head coach Rich Refi won’t even look as far ahead as the county relays just yet. Saturday’s Skyland Conference Relays at Ridge represent the team’s first big meet of the season.
"One meet at a time," Refi said. "It’s impossible to say what other teams will do, but we have a lot of people around from indoors and we had a good campaign."
Hillsborough may not do tons of damage on the track, but the team has plenty of firepower in the field events. Junior pole vaulter Robin Friedman will continue to chase the 12-foot plateau after setting a county and school indoor record of 11-8 this past winter. Friedman finished third at the Meet of Champions.
Other HHS athletes with M of C experience include senior Eileen Cafferty, who will be the team’s middle distance leader and second pole vaulter. Senior sprinter Yeneisha Warrick is coming off a fabulous indoor campaign in which she qualified for the Meet of Champs. Junior hurdler/jumper Melanie Gingras also made the big show this winter and should provide lots of points in the spring.
The addition of shot putters Ingrid Berrio and Taryn O’Connor gives the Raiders a potent force in the weight events. Berrio and O’Connor qualified for the Meet of Champs in their first indoor season and are fast approaching the 40-foot mark. Berrio, a junior who added a foot to her personal-best at a national meet in March, decided to come out for spring track after spending her sophomore season as the starting goalkeeper for the girls’ lacrosse team. O’Connor is still a sophomore who spent most of the winter as the team’s top thrower.
"We’re young and balanced," Refi said. "The obvious strengths are the pole vault and the throws."
Friedman’s marks would dominate in most areas, but the Skyland Conference includes many of the state’s best pole vaulters. That regular competition will help Friedman and Cafferty push themselves to greater heights.
Hillsborough has youth and depth in every major area, including sprints, hurdles, jumps, distance and throws. While Berrio and O’Connor should combine to go 1-2 in some order in many meets, the Raiders have other capable throwers.
Junior Colleen Maloney is a fine discus thrower who won the Skyland Conference title last May. Others expected to contribute in the weights include juniors Ali John and Meaghan Morley and freshman Angela Davia.
The team’s hurdlers and jumpers are young and loaded with potential. Cafferty is the only upperclassman in the group. Juniors Melanie Gingras and Sylwia Tyksinski are back, while sophomores Melissa Arango and Ali Leifer have looked good. Gingras will also compete in the long jump and high jump, along with Ali Hydzik, who qualified for the State Group 4 Championships in the high jump last spring.
Warrick leads the sprint team after a fine indoor campaign in which she helped lead the HHS girls to the county and conference titles. Other sprinters expected to contribute include sophomore Ebony Jones, senior Ashley Payne and freshmen Stephanie Ogrodnik and Brittany Payne.
The distance crew, once the strength of the HHS girls’ team, hopes to chip in points to keep the program’s streaks intact. That group includes junior Allison Marcsisin, sophomore Melissa Bitten, seniors Megan Davin and Ingrid Mellor and junior Nicole Filipowicz.

