By Justin Feil, The Packet Group
The Robbinsville High School cross country teams find themselves in familiar territory as they head into the third weekend in November.
Both the Raven boys and girls will be running in this Saturday’s Group II state championship meet after placing in the top five in sectionals. It’s become a tradition for the programs, neither of which is even a decade old.
”It’s the ninth year of having a varsity guys team,” said Robbinsville head coach Mike Walker. “It’s nine years in a row going to states. It’s the eighth year for varsity girls, and we’ve made it all eight years. You set the bar so high up and I’ve tried to keep things in perspective. It’s quite an accomplishment.”
The Robbinsville boys just ran into an incredible sectional field. It’s the only thing that separated it from a win. The Raven boys finished second in Central Jersey Group II with 51 points. Voorhees won with 33 points.
Richie Kasper was fourth in 16:21, Zach Michon took eighth in 16:45, Christian Roberts placed ninth in 16:46, Patrick Buonamassa was 14th in 17:02 and Bobby Hastie closed out the scoring in 16th in 17:06. Anton Alekseyev was 41st and Ryan Gross was 43rd in 18:05.
”That compares with any of our best teams,” Walker said. “We had a much closer pack and much better average. That was a really good race. We would have won Group III without much trouble, and Group I where we came out of a couple years ago, we would have dominated.
”We might have run comparable to West Windsor South in Group IV. Voorhees, which is ranked second or third in the state, that’s who we ran up against. The guys race was pretty good.”
The Robbinsville girls placed third with 132 points, three points ahead of Delaware Valley and four better than Monmouth Regional. Rumson-Fair Haven won with 57 points and Voorhees had 63.
Lauren Kroepfl continued her fine season in ninth in 19:51. Erin Holzbaur was 18th in 20:25, Gabby Manto took 26th in 20:49, Enlin Carow was 35th in 21:20 and Makenzie Bayless ran 21:46 for 44th to close out the top five. Caitlyn Krueger was 49th in 22:02 and Delaney Potter was 60th in 22:39.
”It was like counties,” Walker said. “It was take a risk and try to leapfrog someone. They went out hard and put themselves in good positions. They just couldn’t hold it. I’m not disappointed. It’s the same thing as last year.”
If the same thing repeats itself from a year ago at groups, the Ravens will place just as highly at groups. Walker is hopeful that his program shows it hasn’t peaked at sectionals and saves another better race for the group meet.
”The girls proved that last year — they were third in the sectional and third in groups,” Walker said. “We’re set up for the same situation.”
