MHS girls complete team race
By: Rudy Brandl
BERNARDS The Manville High cross country program has been making more history than winning so far this season. It happened again in last Thursday’s Skyland Conference Championships at Pleasant Valley Park in Bernards Township.
While the Mustangs are still far from making an impact in a meet of this magnitude against some of New Jersey’s elite teams, they are taking steps forward. The MHS girls competed in a championship meet as a team for the first time in school history and almost every individual male and female runner posted their fastest Pleasant Valley Park time.
"This was a big one," MHS head coach Jim O’Connor said. "Just to have another team sport at Manville is a big step forward for the school and the program."
The Manville girls finished last in the field, but that wasn’t the issue. MHS had never put more than a handful of individual girls on the course at any one time, let alone in a major meet, prior to this season.
"It’s about time we have a team," Manville sophomore Casey Shields said. "It feels great. I love our team."
Manville has a very young girls’ team. Two juniors, two sophomores and a freshman competed in last week’s conference meet, Manville’s first as members of the elite Skyland Conference.
Shields improved upon her county time of the previous week but still came up a little short of her personal best while leading the MHS girls (25:22). Junior Dominika Lastovickova (28:38), Arielle Mizov (29:53), Alissa Teodorczy (30:28) and Jen Gomez (31:29) gave Manville the mandatory five runners to complete a full team race.
"They’re disciplined, they work hard and they have pride," O’Connor said. "They’ll get stronger and their running will get better."
That’s already happened for MHS junior Sasa Todorovic, who shattered his prior Pleasant Valley Park best with a time of 19:11. Todorovic cut 49 seconds off his county time and led the Manville boys again.
"The weather conditions were a lot better, it wasn’t as muddy and the course ran a lot faster," Todorovic said. "This is the third time in a row running it and we had to run our best this meet."
Todorovic went out faster and managed to maintain a very good pace. He has learned where to make surges and where to coast on this course.
"I started out pretty fast and kept going," he said. "I could have picked it up more at the end."
Teammates Adam Wolcott (21:13), Andrew Franko (23:28), Jason Pfoutz (28:14) and Emils Stopins (28:21) also finished the race for the MHS boys.
"The first few boys in all ran faster than they’ve ever run here," O’Connor said. "Almost every kid ran a personal best. The more we run the course, the more confident we’ll get. We get better every time we do this."
Ridge rolled to the boys’ title, while Voorhees prevailed in a tie-breaker over Bridgewater-Raritan for the girls’ crown. It’s likely that Manville’s competition in this weekend’s Central Jersey Group 1 field will be much easier than in the county and conference meets.
The CJ 1 race will be held at Thompson Park in Jamesburg Saturday. Teams placing in the top five and individuals finishing in the top 10 will earn a spot in the State Group 1 Championships at Holmdel Park Nov. 11.
"The competition is going to be easier and the course is supposed to be flat," Todorovic said. "I want to get in the top 10 this time."
Shields is just happy to be leaving Pleasant Valley Park for the season.
"I don’t like this course," she said. "I hope the course at sectionals is more forgiving."
If the Mustangs can get enough healthy bodies on the course, they could make some noise this weekend.

