Hopewell Valley girls cross country
By: Jim Green
The important thing for the Hopewell Valley Central High School girls cross country team is that it is moving on.
The Lady Bulldogs placed third in the team standings Saturday in the Central Jersey Group III sectional championships at Holmdel Park. With their top-five finish, they advance to this Saturday’s Group III championships at Holmdel.
"We really weren’t too concerned with where we placed our main objective was to finish in the top five," Oldfield said. "We felt we were ready to be top-five. We considered it a dress rehearsal for this weekend."
Hopewell tallied 94 points, well behind powerhouse Colts Neck, which won the championship with 27 points. Ocean Township was second with 71.
The Lady Bulldogs were paced by Duke University-bound Emily Sherrard, who finished fifth at 20:09, and Mercer County champion Megan Fitzpatrick, who was 11th at 20:36. HoVal also received strong efforts from Marissa Greco (20:50), Kelsey Smith (21:18), Anna Weingart (22:45), Megan Ryan (23:04) and Allison Hilderbrandt (23:28).
"We expect that course to be tougher," Oldfield said. "That course can beat you up. We were trying to save our legs. This week, it will be totally different, because our kids will be running more as individuals."
The top three teams in each group, as well as two at-large teams, will advance to the Meet of Champions on Nov. 19. The top 10 individual runners, as well as 10 wild card runners, also advance automatically.
Since the Group IV race will take place earlier than the Group III race, the Lady Bulldogs will know what times they need to beat in order to qualify as wild cards. Traditionally, most wild cards have come from Group III or IV.
"We’ll have a better indication of what we need to do," Oldfield said. "In a perfect world, we’d like to have our whole team advance. But it would be great if our top three advanced."

