Olympic Gold, running success highlight year’s best
By Bob Nuse and Justin Feil, Staff Writers
There were great team achievements, individual accomplishments and a Gold Medal performance.
For teams and athletes from the Princeton Packet area, 2008 was yet another successful year on the playing field, in the pool and on the running courses.
Here is a countdown to the Top 10 athletic events of the 2008 year in the Packet area.
10. Nearly perfect: The Montgomery High School girls’ soccer team was supposed to take a step back after being hit heavily by the graduation of four Division I players. Instead, with a baker’s dozen seniors leading the way and players taking on new roles everywhere on the field, the Cougars put together arguably their greatest season in program history. They were unbeaten in their first 20 games, including wins for their second ever Somerset County championship and the Skyland Conference Delaware East Division. It is the first season in which they have won two championships.
9. Rhodes to success: Myron Rolle put together an impressive career on the football field at the Hun School, and continued his strong play as a starter for the Florida State University football team. He has been even more impressive off the field. In November, he became the first prominent football player in 25 years to be awarded a Rhodes scholarship. Rolle completed his undergraduate degree in 2½ years and is currently working toward his master’s degree in public administration. He will put his NFL career on hold to study at Oxford.
8. A fast finisher: Always good, Katie Kellner began her senior season at West Windsor-Plainsboro South looking to make a jump to something special. By the end of the fall cross country season, she was 27th in the country at the Foot Locker nationals. It topped off a year that saw her win the Manhattan Invitational, a second Mercer County Championship, the Central Jersey Group IV and Group IV crowns and earn third place at the Meet of Champions. She recorded the fastest time at Holmdel Park for a Mercer County runner. She was sixth at the Foot Locker Northeast Regionals.
7. Par for the course: West Windsor-Plainsboro High South golfer Anthony Aloi capped perhaps the greatest career in the school’s history with another championship season. The senior won a Mercer County Tournament title, which had just eluded him his first three years, helping the Pirates win a team title as well. He was also the Central/South Group IV and state Group IV champions, while finishing within a shot of a playoff for a second straight Tournament of Champions title.
6. Joining the big boys: The Montgomery High wrestling program has only been a varsity sport for three years, but already the Cougars are going toe to toe with the best programs in the state. As a team, Montgomery reached the North Jersey 2, Group III final for the first time. Individually, both Erik Biago and Tom Reynolds qualified for the individual state tournament finals in Atlantic City.
5. The roaring 40s: West Windsor resident David Zhuang had been to the Olympics before. But this time there was a little something unique as he represented the United States in table tennis. At the age of 44, Zhuang was one of the oldest competitors on the U.S. team in Beijing.
4. Three classics: Talk about your evenly matched teams. The boys’ soccer teams from West Windsor-Plainsboro North and Princeton High met three times, with each game getting better than the one before it. The Knights won the regular-season matchup, 2-0, in the first meeting between the teams. The next two games would both go into overtime, with the Little Tigers winning a Mercer County Tournament semifinal and going on to claim the MCT title. The Knights won when the teams met again, this time in the Central Jersey Group III semifinals. North would them go on to beat Wall for a second straight CJ III title.
3. Mission accomplished: Guy Gadowsky’s rebuilding of the Princeton University men’s ice hockey program came full circle when the Tigers topped Harvard, 4-1, to capture the ECAC championship. With the title, the Tigers earned a berth in the NCAA tournament, where they dropped a 5-1 decision to North Dakota. Just four years removed from winning five games, Princeton’s steady improvement under Gadowsky resulted in the program’s first ECAC title since 1998.
2. Enhanced performance: The West Windsor-Plainsboro North boys cross country team faced incredibly high expectations after a breakout 2007, and they met them in 2008. The Knights did not lose a race in the Colonial Valley Conference, and that was just a start. They went on to repeat as Mercer County champion with a record-low score. They won the Central Jersey Group III and Group III crowns, then won the program’s first Meet of Champions title with another record performance, this for average time. They won the Northeast Regional title to advance to nationals, where they finished fifth. Joe Rosa was fourth individually at nationals.
1. The Gold standard: West Windsor-Plainsboro High North graduate Rebecca Soni made the most of her first trip to the Summer Olympics with three medals. Her Beijing Olympics began with a silver medal in the 100 breaststroke. Days later, Soni shocked the swimming world by upsetting world-record holder Leisel Jones of Australia to win the gold medal in the 200 breaststroke with a new world record. She is the first Packet-area native to win a gold medal in 44 years. She finished with a silver medal in the 400 medley relay in a new American record. With her three medals, she returned for her senior year at USC.

