BY GEORGE ALBANO
Staff Writer
MIGUEL JUAREZ staff South Brunswick’s Yemi Ayeni defended his Meet of Champions title in the discus on June 8, and will look to add a national title to his résumé this weekend in North Carolina. There was really only one way Yemi Ayeni of South Brunswick High School and Erin Folger of North Brunswick High could have ended their scholastic careers in track and field: With a gold medal draped around their neck at last week’s Meet of Champions.
After the kind of final season each of the senior standouts had this spring, that was the only way it could have ended.
Apparently both of them agreed. Ayeni captured first place in the discus at the Meet of Champions for the second year in a row, while Folger garnered top honors in the girl’s javelin event.
And they’re both not quite done yet, either. Ayeni and Folger will both be competing in the Nike Outdoor Nationals Friday and Saturday at North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro, N.C.
But their work in New Jersey is officially done and they couldn’t have written a better ending. Ayeni, as he’s done all season, completely dominated the discus, winning the event with a throw of 190 feet, 9 inches. The next closest toss was 176 feet, 3 inches, some 14 and a half feet behind Ayeni.
Meanwhile, Folger won the girls javelin with a throw of 129 feet, three feet better than her nearest competitor and nearly two feet better than the 127-3 she threw to win the Central Jersey Group IV state championship the week before.
But unlike Ayeni, this was Folger’s first time in the winner’s circle after finishing eighth as a junior at last year’s Meet of Champions.
“I couldn’t wait to be back the next year,” she said. “That was my goal all season.”
Not only to get back, but to win it this time. The fact that six of the top eight finishers last year were seniors and had graduated only gave her more incentive.
“Me and another girl from Pinelands were the only juniors to finish in the top eight last year,” Folger said. “She was hurt most of this year, too, and didn’t throw well. So I figured if I was one of the only ones who had experience at the Meet of Champions, that kind of gave me a little advantage. Being there the year before made me work even harder to win it this year.”
As expected, Folger turned in another solid regular season, throwing a personal-best 131-11 in a tri-meet against New Brunswick and Colonia. In fact, she really had only one “bad” day and that was at the GMC Championships, where she finished second.
“I don’t know what happened that day,” Folger, who won the GMC title as a junior, said. “I threw 15 feet under what I normally throw and the girl who beat me threw her best of the year and beat me by two feet.”
But that only made Folger more focused and determined when the state meets rolled around.
“I said this is not gonna happen again. I lost the county, but I’m gonna win the state.”
She kept her word, too, throwing a 127-3 to finish first at the sectional meet, and then the same exact distance at the state finals to win the CJ Group IV crown.
Not bad for someone who didn’t even pick up a javelin for the first time until her freshman year in high school.
“I didn’t play a sport in the spring,” Folger, an all-county midfielder in soccer in the fall and a point guard on the basketball team in the winter, said. “I wanted to do something and I was trying to decide between lacrosse and track.
“But some of my friends were on the track team so they got me to join.”
So why the javelin?
“Well, I didn’t want to run,” she said with a laugh. “And one of my friends threw the javelin and said I have a pretty strong arm and should try it. That’s how I got started.”
But she was a natural, throwing over 100 feet as a freshman. And at 5-foot-3, Folger’s diminutive size belied the explosiveness she threw with.
“I was definitely always the smallest one,” she said. “I think a lot of people overlooked me at first because of that.”
But not for long. People all over the county, and eventually the state, began to take notice.
“My freshman year I just sort of learned the basics,” she said. “I didn’t know much about technique. I just worked on getting stronger because I was a lot smaller than everyone else.”
Then when Cindi Totten, Folger’s track coach her freshman year, left to coach the boys tennis team, there was no one to work specifically with Folger in the javelin.
“I didn’t have a coach to work with my sophomore and junior years,” she said. “But this year Charles Lee came on as an assistant coach and worked with me. He threw in high school and helped me a lot.
“It was like starting from scratch,” she added. “I learned a lot of new things.”
We can only wonder how well Folger would have done with four years of coaching like that. As it was, though, Lee’s work with her paid off in their one year together, especially at the Meet of Champions.
“I think he was more excited than me when I won,” Folger laughed.
Athletics isn’t the only area where Folger excelled however. The daughter of Maria and Tom Folger carries a 4.32 GPA and will be attending Cornell in the fall, where she will major in Biology. And, of course, throw the javelin.
“They start training in the fall,” Folger, who graduates on June 28, said. “I only have a couple of weeks left at North Brunswick and that’s a little sad. But I’m more excited than sad. I’m ready to go and looking forward to college.”
So is Ayeni, who will be throwing the discus for the University of Virginia next year. But he, too, still has one more meet left as he puts the finishing touches on an outstanding scholastic career.
“Yemi really wants to see what he’s capable of doing. He wants to do bigger and better things,” South Brunswick coach Wilfredo Rivera said. “That’s why this is a big weekend for him going to the nationals.”
Ayeni’s personal best in the discus is 204 feet, 8 inches, which he threw at the Central Jersey Group IV state sectional meet on May 3.
“He went over 200 feet three times that day,” Rivera, in his first year as head coach after two years as an assistant, said. “As of right now, 204-8 is his best performance, and right now that’s the second farthest throw in the country.”
The only one to throw farther is Sean Pruitt of Wisconsin, whose season-best was 215-7.
“Yemi needs someone like that to throw against and he’s looking forward to the challenge,” Rivera said. “Whereas at the state meet, even though he had a great meet and he’s the best in the state, Yemi far and beyond out throws everyone by 20 or 30 feet. For him to bring out the best he has to offer, he needs to get his adrenaline going and he’s only going to get that at a big meet like the Penn Relays or the Nationals.”
Ayeni will also be competing in the shot put, an event he took second in at the Meet of Champions with a toss of 57 feet, 5 inches.
But whatever happens this weekend, it will mark the end of a brilliant career at South Brunswick.
“He’s the type of kid who puts in his time and expects a lot out of it and he gets a lot out of it,” Rivera said. “He doesn’t throw the discus until April, but he was out there in September throwing on his own, trying to get better. To me that exemplifies the type of athlete he is. He’s a testament to hard work.”