Pirates plunder county cross country title

Kezele develops into major part of improved South squad

By: Justin Feil
   HAMILTON — Josh Kezele was the sixth finisher for the West Windsor-Plainsboro South boys’ cross country at the Mercer County Championships a year ago.
   Then a junior, he covered the Veterans Park 5k course in 17 minutes, 13 seconds for a respectable 22nd place overall. He finished ahead of Hopewell Valley’s fifth finisher. Despite such depth and such a solid performance, the Pirates lost by one point to the Bulldogs.
   There was no such drama at the MCC on Friday in part because Kezele and the Pirates have improved so much in a year. Kezele covered the same Veterans Park course more than a minute faster than last year as the Pirates ran away with their first county crown since 1999. Kezele was the fourth WW-P South finisher in the Top 5 as Joe Ennis won the race for the second straight year, Brian Leung was third and Chris Reale was fourth. The Pirates easily outdistanced runner-up Hopewell, a sixth-man tiebreaker winner over Princeton High.
   "This year was the fifth year of our five-year plan," said Kezele, who ran 16:10 Friday. "In our training during the summer, we stepped it up so much. All the varsity guys have been keeping their mileage right around 50 miles a week for the whole season. We weren’t even close to that last year.
   "Our Top 4 are so close, we train so well together. We’ve finally almost caught up to Joe. This wouldn’t have been possible without him."
   Ennis has been a front-runner since his freshman year when he was third at the MCC. But then, his classmates were nowhere in sight.
   "When I was a freshman, I looked up to him as something I could never be," said Kezele, who is also a senior. "Little did I know it was possible."
   Kezele climbed the Pirates’ ladder, first running varsity as a sophomore and then last year running anywhere from third to sixth. The goals were different this season.
   "Our goal last year was to win counties," Kezele said. "This year, we looked beyond counties. Sectionals have been our goal since the beginning of the year. But it’s nice to finally get a county championship after coming so close last year. We just put that (one-point loss) behind us at the end of last year."
   The unbeaten Pirates continue to move forward when they compete for the Central Jersey Group IV championship Saturday at Holmdel Park.
   "If our top four perform as well as they did today," Kezele said, "we have a good shot."
   Added WW-P South head coach Chris Bond: "Every year we start with the goal of going to states and running the best we can. These guys wanted to win counties. It was important to them. But our main goal is to train these boys to be young men."
   In Kezele, Bond points to a success story who has grown in leaps and bounds since his freshman year. Always one of the support runners, Kezele has developed into a runner who would be safely No. 1 on all but one of the county’s teams based on Friday’s results.
   "He’s a guy who’s been on the side," Bond said. "On some other teams have attitudes where they worry about one guy or two guys. We always talk about the other guy. Josh is the other guy. He’s an example of where this program has come together. He’s a great barometer of the program. Josh ran 1:03 better than last year. That’s why we’re so good."
   Added Ennis, "Josh is awesome. Freshman year, I never would have ever thought he would be this good. I thought he’d be on varsity, but not fifth in the county. We never know who’s going to be first in workouts. We’re having competition, but we don’t take it too far."
   What impressed Bond about Friday’s performance, and what he hopes the Pirates can build on this Saturday, is that the gap between Ennis and their fifth finisher, Mike Meers, was the lowest it’s been this year.
   "It was right about one minute today," Bond said. "Our best gap until today was about 1:20. I told our guys, if we want to win (sectionals), we have to get that gap to be about a minute. We did today. It seems like everything is coming together for next week."
   The Little Tiger boys believe the same thing. While they were disappointed to lose to Hopewell after beating them by three points in their dual meet, PHS knows it has another shot in Saturday’s Central Jersey Group III meet at Holmdel.
   "We got Round 1," said PHS head coach John Woodside. "They got Round 2. Round 3 is (this) weekend. This was a great race. This is the fastest and deepest field in a long time."
   In all, 23 runners broke the 17-minute mark Friday. PHS was led by Dan Cavallaro who was sixth while Christophe Dorsey was 10th.
   "Our guys all ran well," Woodside said. "I have no complaints. The only thing that I could say could have been better is they could have kicked a little better. In a close race, that can be something. But they ran well."
   Led by Will Muñoz and Sean McNulty, West Windsor-Plainsboro North also ran well to finish fourth in the boys’ team standings Friday. Knights head coach Brian Gould is hoping the competition will pay off at the CJ III meet Saturday.
   "It’s good that the county is getting competitive," he said. "It prepares everyone better for sectionals. Princeton and Hopewell battled it out. We weren’t that close to them in the standings, but per man we were not far behind. We ran well. To do something, we had to run great.
   "Now we have to make the great run happen. The underlying thing for today is we ran well. If we run great, we have a chance to do something we haven’t done before."
   Princeton Day School split its boys team and Erik Lefebvre won the freshman race handily. The Panthers finished 12th in the varsity standings, and hope to use the fast meet as a springboard to the Prep B championships scheduled for Wednesday at Blair Academy.
   "A lot of kids in the varsity race had their best times ever," said PDS head coach Eamon Downey. "I’m optimistic about our chances in Prep B. If you put Erik Lefebvre back in the varsity, we have a good chance."
   That’s more than the county could say with Josh Kezele and the WW-P South boys’ cross country team improved and tuning up for a run at the state championship.