Todorovic wins first race
By: Rudy Brandl
Manville High cross country coach Jim O’Connor continued to have a positive attitude even after his team lost twice to finish a winless season last week.
There was good reason for O’Connor’s optimism after Manville dropped both ends of a home tri-meet to South Hunterdon (20-39) and Belvidere (21-34) to finish the 2005 campaign with an 0-9 record. It wasn’t simply because the Mustangs actually competed against nine teams in a season that looked like it may never materialize after O’Connor struggled to find enough runners to field a full squad back in September.
The veteran coach was excited about his team’s progress because almost every individual runner posted his or her best time in the regular season finale. Most cross country coaches agree that success is best measured by the individual runner’s improvement in times. Nobody can control what the opposing team does.
"You can’t ask for more from a kid that running the best he’s ever run in his life," O’Connor said. "Although we didn’t win, we had a lot of kids do their best. As a coach, you can’t ask for more than that."
While the Mustangs may not have won a meet this fall, MHS sophomore Sasa Todorovic put his personal stamp on the win column with a first-place finish in last week’s tri-meet. Todorovic ran a personal-best time of 18:44 to win comfortably.
"That was a sizeable improvement for him," O’Connor said. "He went out real fast the last time he ran at Manville and died. This was a breakthrough for him. He had a very, very good day. He’s starting to get a sense of what he can do."
Runners from South Hunterdon and Belvidere combined to occupy the next 10 places before Manville sophomore Erik Lubas crossed 11th in a time of 21:31, nearly two minutes faster than his previous best. Ron Skirkanish shaved nearly a minute off his prior standard with a time of 22:19 that was good for 14th place. David Le was right behind him in 15th place (22:20) and Nick Pillsbury finished 27th in 27:25.
Adam Wolcott had a rough day or he would have set a new personal record at the Manville course. The MHS sophomore ran despite feeling sick but then turned an ankle during the race and had to drop out. Wolcott was on his way to a top 10 finish in the race.
Manville freshmen Kate Harodetsky and Casey Shields stuck together and finished seventh and eighth, respectively. Harodetsky (25:14) and Shields (25:25) should make a nice 1-2 punch the next three years if they stick with the sport.
The Mustangs were scheduled to finish their season at Tuesday afternoon’s Mountain Valley Conference Championships at Pleasant Valley Park in Bernards. They ran the same course back in the middle of October at the Somerset County Championships. O’Connor wasn’t sure how many Mustangs would compete in the MVC meet but was hoping all would show improvement over their county times.
If last week’s regular season finale is any indication, the MHS runners are still getting faster.

