O’Toole is first medalist for cross country program
By Justin Feil, The Packet Group
HOLMDEL — The Robbinsville High School cross country teams peaked in time for the Meet of Champions.
The Ravens, both second in their Group I races last week, came up with strong efforts to close their 2010 season in style at the MOC at Holmdel Park on Saturday. Brian O’Toole became the first Ravens runner to medal at the MOC when he finished 11th overall in 16:00.
”It was pretty fast,” said the Robbinsville senior. “It was tough, but I got it. I got what I wanted. I wanted top 15. It feels good.
”This summer, I trained with a kid that goes to Iona now and a kid that goes to TCNJ, so I was with some good fast kids,” he said. “They were trying to get me in shape to run 16 or sub-16 at Holmdel. I guess it paid off.”
O’Toole came to the start line confident in his conditioning, and the race performance erased any of his fears.
”The race played out good,” O’Toole said. “I was nervous at the beginning because last year I fell at the mile mark. I was in a big pack and I tripped, so I was worried that the same thing would happen, but it didn’t.”
The Raven boys finished 14th overall with 363 points. Roberto Guiducci was 101st. Michael Michon and Constantine Moraiti were 142nd and 143rd respectively and Alex Hallmark rounded out the top five in 149th with David Holzbaur one spot behind in 150th, and all but O’Toole will return next year.
”O’Toole, that was our first medalist at this meet,” said Ravens head coach Mike Walker. “I’m really happy for him. He did two goals, break 16 here and a top-20 finish. He’s pretty excited about the whole thing. He’s going to run at regionals next week, so this keeps him moving along. I think he’s going to run well. We’ll see where he places.
”Roberto, that was a PR. The rest of the guys ran as a pack. We had 3-7 within 16 seconds. Finishing 14th as a Group I, I think all the guys are pretty happy about it.”
Jackie Lazzaro and the Robbinsville girls were just as thrilled with their showing. Last week, Lazzaro struggled at Holmdel.
”Holmdel is always intimidating,” said the junior. “As you get more experienced at it, it’s a little less scary and you run a little better.”
Lazzaro picked a good day for her best as she was the Ravens’ second finisher, 90th overall, behind Meagan Lesniak. The lone senior in the girls’ top seven, Lesniak was 84th overall in her final scholastic cross country race. The Ravens finished 16th.
”Our whole team did really good today,” Lazzaro said. “We all did a lot better than last week. We all wanted to end the season on a good note. Last week, we all didn’t really feel good after the race or during the race. This week, we came together and felt a lot better.”
Behind Lesniak and Lazzaro came Julie Swift in 97th and freshmen Paris Hughes in 102nd and Julia Borowski in 109th respectively. Naturally, Lazzaro was worried that she may have peaked too early after struggling in the group meet, but found encouraging results Saturday.
”I had some doubts,” Lazzaro said, “but this race is supposed to be fun and there’s no pressure, so we could just run the race that we wanted to.”
Said Walker: “Today, they ran their race. The results speak for themselves. We’ve got PRs all over the place.”
It made for a better ending to the year, and a happy group of Raven runners to close a successful season.
”It’s nice to have that as opposed to when you finish a race and you’re struggling,” Walker said. “The same thing with the season, I didn’t want to see us struggle with it. The times make it an added bonus. Everyone looked good and was running fast, which is not easy to do in this meet.”
Both Robbinsville teams lose one runner apiece to graduation, albeit a couple of big ones in O’Toole and Lesniak, who took pressure off the younger Ravens harriers. The goal for next year is to earn another trip back to the MOC, this time after a pair of Group I wins.
”I think we’re a young team, so we’re coming back next year really strong,” Lazzaro said. “We have a lot of good freshmen and we’ll hopefully have more freshmen next year. And hopefully we do a little better at states and win it next year.”