By: Sean Moylan
Last year, Megan Flynn spent the fall season as one of the standout players on the Robbinsville High School varsity field hockey team.
Nonetheless, Robbinsville girls’ varsity cross country head coach Mike Walker has no doubt that Flynn, now a sophomore star, will have no trouble making the transition to becoming one of the better cross country runners in the CVC.. Moreover, Robbinsville’s first ever sports superstar, senior Gina Norato, is back. Norato and Flynn hold every major long distance record in the school’s history.
"I’d like to break 19 minutes," said Flynn, who won Group I state titles in the mile and two mile races last spring.
Last fall, Norato was the runner-up at the cross country Group I sectionals and placed 8th in the state meet.
Flynn worked very hard this summer and she even attended a special XC University camp to stay in shape. Nonetheless, she is still working on a few things.
"She has to learn not to ‘hammer’ every day," said Walker, who’d like to see Flynn pace herself a little better so she’ll be fresh for states at the end of the season. "It’s still going to be a learning experience for her. But you could put her in any of the sports and she would be good."
After three plus years, Norato has the routine down and Walker is expecting a tremendous season out of her. While Norato and Flynn still take the lead in practices, Robbinsville has a lot of talented runners and it will finally field a varsity squad.
" We have a couple of girls behind them (Norato and Flynn) who are real good. We went from having no girls varsity team to having four girls attend a cross country camp at Colt’s Neck with my old college coach this summer," added Walker, who ran for three years at Pennsylvania State University, before transferring over to The College of New Jersey where he became a three-time conference champion and placed 12th at the track nationals in the 10k race. In other words, Walker knows what it takes to be a good cross country runner and, consequently, he put all of his runners, new and old, on strict practice schedules this summer.
Junior Amber Scott, is an experienced runner from Peddie who made the Robbinsville varsity cross country team this fall. Senior Erin Hayes and junior Holly Lovering also made the team as did freshmen Selena Anker, Meagan Lesniak and Alicia Norato, who like her older sister Gina, is very talented. Walker is expecting to add a couple of more girls to the team in the coming week or so.
"I’m pretty confident we’ll qualify for states as well as have a winning record," said Walker, whose team must, nonetheless, work very hard to achieve those goals.
Robbinsville will open against Allentown and Hightstown at Washington Crossing on September 11th. Robbinsville’s first major weekend meet will be the Cherokee Challenge on September 15th. As a former track and field and cross country star at Rancocas Valley, Walker is no stranger to that meet.
BOYS
Senior Jon Harmon and sophomore Nick Lachman are currently the star runners for the Robbinsville High boys’ varsity cross country team. However the difference between their times and the times of the other top Raven runners is small at best.
"Our pack is a lot closer on boys’ side than it is on the girls’ side," said Mike Walker, who is the head coach of both Robbinsville varsity cross country squads. "We have six guys who are running pretty close to each other right now."
Even so, Walker sees Lachman, who had a breakthrough freshman year, as having the potential to be one of the top runners at Sectionals this season. And Harmon has been a standout runner ever since he was a freshman. But others, like senior Brian Flynn (Megan’s older brother), are also standing out in practices.
"Brian Flynn came over from the football team. He’s one of the toughest kids in the school. Whatever I tell him to do, he does," remarked Walker.
"On the guys’ side we have a lot of seniors who have worked hard since I got here. On the guys’ side, we gained a couple of people since last year."
Mike Schindewolf, who ran some great races last season, Andrew McLaughlin, Zach Matuzsan and Mike Zapicchi are the other stellar senior runners on the team. Mike Landolfi is the only junior on the varsity roster. The sophomores on the Robbinsville cross country squad are as follows: Matt Banziger, Ryan Bottin, Tim Brazelton, Benjamin Huynh, Daniel Killeen, Tyler Muir, Daniel Orlak and Chris Woidill. And like last season, this year Walker has a pretty good incoming freshmen group of runners in Michael Giesler, Andrew Kurzeja, Jonathan Sanders,and Ryan Whitlock.
Walker had eight of his boys go to cross country camps. Furthermore, the Raven boys had no trouble doing everything on Walker’s intense summer workout schedules.
Last year Robbinsville was 2-7 in regular season meets. But most of those meets were against much larger schools. However, it placed fifth as a team at the Group I Sectionals.
Robbinsville is better this season and Walker believes his team could post a winning record and perhaps win a Sectional title. With so many guys running great times all summer long, those are not far-fetched goals at all. Robbinsville is scheduled to open its season with a dual meet versus Hightstown and Allentown (it may score against just one of those teams) at Washington Crossing on September 11th.

