Magath wins opening race for harriers
by Rudy Brandl, Sports Editor
It’s still early in the season, but the Hillsborough High boys took a huge step toward securing their fourth consecutive Delaware Division cross country crown with last week’s tri-meet sweep of Bridgewater-Raritan and Watchung Hills.
The HHS girls also swept the season opening meet, held at Buccleuch Park in Somerset, but will need to upset division favorite Montgomery to win the title.
Hillsborough head coach Rich Refi doesn’t normally ask his athletes to push hard in early September, but he put down the gas pedal in the opener. The Raiders responded with a solid performance.
”We ran hard, we ran to win,” Refi said. “We hadn’t done anything yet and we needed an icebreaker.”
The HHS boys certainly didn’t need any extra motivation. Whenever Bridgewater-Raritan is involved in the race, the Raiders like to go all-out.
”It was Bridgewater and we really wanted to go out and prove something,” said HHS junior Jordan Magath, who won the race in a time of 16:49. “It’s great to get off to a good start like this. It gives us a lot of confidence. Bridgewater is going to be our main competition in the county and conference.”
Magath started fast, took the lead and never relinquished it. Teammates Mike Rath and Jason Walton followed him to the finish line in 16:58 and 17:02, respectively.
”I took the lead and set the pace for everyone and just kept it up,” Magath said. “I really thought Bridgewater was going to throw something in there but we got our top three in first.”
The B-R brother tandem of Tom Banafato (17:10) and Chris Banafato (17:14) finished 4-5 and the Panthers had six boys in the top 10, but the damage was done.
”Bridgewater is pretty stacked and we know they’re competitive, so we wanted to see what we’d be up against,” Walton said. “It was kind of like a time trial to see where we are, but it’s also the Bridgewater rivalry. We never want to lose to Bridgewater.”
Kevin Brower finished eighth overall in a time of 17:31 to help the Raiders post a 26-31 win over Bridgewater. Alex Brown (18:00), Rahul Doshi (18:01) and Kevin Thorp (18:20) rounded out the team’s top seven. Both B-R and HHS blanked Watchung Hills by 15-50 scores.
Last year, the HHS boys used a good chunk of their roster to win the division title. Four different runners won races and 12 boys contributed points and places during the regular season. The Raiders may not be as deep this year, but their top guns came out blazing.
”It was a big change,” Magath said. “We trained a lot harder this summer. We knew the play and we were going all-out. We were definitely ready for it.”
HHS sophomore Ashley Smolinka finished nearly two minutes in front of the rest of the field in the girls’ race. Smolinka posted a time of 19:24 to lead the Raiders to a sweep of B-R (21-37) and Watchung (17-46).
Five more Raider girls cracked the top 10 Robyn Paterno (3rd, 21:17), Nicole Rocha (4th, 21:29), Meredith Mayes (7th, 21:43), Alyssa Ciccotelli (8th, 22:04) and Michelle Dennis (9th, 22:04). Jenna Scillitani posted a time of 22:29 in her first varsity race.
Hillsborough’s teams were scheduled to compete at Montgomery Park Wednesday and run vs. Immaculata at Duke Island Park Sept 26. The Raiders have entered the Shore Coaches Invitational (Oct. 6) and Old Bridge Invitational (Oct. 13) and will compete in at least one of those big events to prepare for the Somerset County and Skyland Conference championship meets later in the month.