The only championship to elude the Christian Brothers Academy cross country team last season on its way to the NJSIAAMeet of Champions title and a fifth place at the Nike Cross Nationals, was at historic Van Cortlandt Park.
The Colts finished second at the Eastern States Championships held in the Bronx, N.Y. The Colts made up for that one misstep on Sunday when they captured the Eastern States Championship in convincing fashion reinforcing their No. 1 ranking in the country. The Colts beat a deep and talented field of contenders that included several nationally ranked teams by 43 points with a low score of 60. Runner up, New York state power Fayetteville Manlius, the 12th ranked team in the country, scored 103 points.
George Kelly led the impressive CBA performance finishing fourth in the 2.5- mile race (12:47.75).
Mike McClemens (12:56.21) and Will Bragg (12:58.13) were ninth and 10th overall and dipped under the benchmark 13:00 at VCP.
Conrad Lippert was 14th for the Colts (13:05.95) and Tim Gorman completed the scoring in 23rd (13:18.03).
CBA’s team average of 13:01.22 was 10 seconds better than F-M’s 13:11.04 and 16 seconds faster than the Colts average last year at this meet when they were second to Shaker (N.Y.).
Out front in the race was Edward Cheserek St. Benedict’s Prep of Jersey City, who broke a course record for the second straight week. First it was his 14:53 at Holmdel Park and on Sunday it was an 11:55.39 at Van Cortland which made him the first to run the course in under 12:00.
Another Shore area team, Rumson- Fair Haven’s girls, had a memorable day at VCP as well. With Rachel Christ winning the race in 15:09.4, the Bulldogs won the Varsity F race with 72 points.
On Tuesday, the Colts will defend their Monmouth County title at Holmdel Park. Red Bank Catholic’s girls are the defending champions on their side.
One thing is certain, there will be new individual champions as RBC’s Molly McNamara (Stanford) and Kevin Byrne (Notre Dame) have both graduated and are now running in college. McNamara was a two-time champion.