Cardinals can improve on last year’s record

CROSS COUNTRY

   Victories over Hightstown and Steinert helped the Lawrence High School girls cross country team match their total wins from last season and get a shot at improving on last season’s record at the final Colonial Valley Conference regular season cross country meet on Tuesday.
   The Cardinals edged Steinert, 27-29 and defeated Hightstown, 24-42, at Washington Crossing Park to record their third and fourth team wins of the season. Lawrence will compete against its last three CVC opponents, Nottingham, Hamilton and West Windsor-Plainsboro North at Veterans Park on Tursday.
   Natalie Falk led the Lawrence girls with a time of 23 minutes, 40 seconds on the 3.1 mile course.
   The Cardinal junior captain ran a personal best to finish to claim second overall behind Steinert’s Alyssa Pane.
   Lawrence sophomore Andrea Tunnard came in second for the Cardinals, while Nicole Kelliher was the team’s third scorer. Cardinal freshman Elizabeth Marsh, senior Laura Brehm and freshman Lydia Falk all placed ahead of the Spartans’ fifth runner to give the Lawrence the advantage in the team scoring.
   Lawrence coach Tim Collins said the Cardinals are excited to race in their final regular season meet and are hoping to possibly pick up two more wins. The Lawrence coach said those wins would secure a .500 record and mark the best record for the girls’ team in over eight years.
   The Lawrence boys’ cross country team also had a strong win over the Spartans.
   Collins said the Cardinals’ 18-37 victory over Steinert was Lawrence’s first win over the Spartans in several years.
   Hightstown defeated Lawrence, 22-34, despite a record run by the Cardinals’ senior captain, Martin Truszkowski.
   Truszkowski set his third Lawrence course record of the year by finishing in 17:23 at the Washington Crossing course.
   The Lawrence senior took third overall out of the 75 runners in the race, while his younger brother, sophomore Ralph Truszkowski finished fifth overall in 17:55. The sophomore’s time would have beaten the old Cardinal course record had his senior brother not broken it.
   Senior captain Scott Figatner finished in 18:18, junior Justin Wisniewski came in at 18:48 and sophomore Solomon Park posted a time of 19:10 to complete the Cardinals’ scoring. Park’s time on the course was a personal best by over a minute and a half.
   Abel McDaniels and Ethan Schindel, Lawrence’s sixth and seventh finishers, posted personal best times out of all the courses the Cardinals race.
   Like the Lawrence girls, the Cardinal boys have matched their win totals from last season and could improve their record with wins on Tuesday.
   The previous week, the Lawrence boys’ team and the Cardinals girls defeated Trenton and Ewing, but lost to Robbinsville.
   The senior Truszkowski led the Lawrence boys, taking third in the race. The sophomore Truszkowski claimed sixth, while Figatner took seventh, Park placed 14th and McDaniels came in 29th.
   Tunnard, Falk and Kelliher took ninth, 10th and 11th for the girls while Lydia Falk and Elizabeth Marsh took 14th and 15th.