HILLSBOROUGH: Veteran Tubby leads boys XC

By Justin Feil, Packet Media Group
For the second straight season, the Hillsborough High School boys cross country team will be looking to replace significant graduation losses.
The Raiders do return their top runner from a year ago, Meet of Champions qualifier Brandon Tubby, who is back for his senior year, and he makes a strong starting point for the team.
“It helps tremendously,” said Raiders head coach Eric Rosenthal. “He’s taken on our motto, train together and race together. I tell our guys to train with Brandon every day. If you’re with him in training, you’ll be with him in racing. He’s been good about organizing the kids. He’s been good about getting guys to train and work.”
Behind Tubby at last year’s Central Jersey Group IV state championship were three seniors that have graduated, but behind them were three harriers that could be in the top seven this year — Jeremy Shipley, Michael Kinney and Liam Baron. At the Skyland Conference Championships, Berton Wang, Sean Lynch and Austin Raymond were all a part of the race and could return with some championship experience.
“I’m pretty confident with the one to three — Brandon Tubby, Jeremy Shipley and we have a soccer transplant, Mitchell Baron,” Rosenthal said. “He’s run winter track and spring track. He’s a junior with Jeremy Shipley. He’s about a 4:40 miler. I may have one senior, Michael Kinney, in there.
“Most likely the others will be some other sophomores and juniors. I had a really good freshman class. They’re now sophomores and they’re good. Brandon’s brother, Justin, he’s a sophomore. He was a football player last year and he’s in the running for one of the spots. It’s a very, very young team.”
With the team being younger, the Raiders can’t pile on the mileage too fast, but they need to build up their speed to compete in their conference, county and sectional. None of their divisions are easy.
“I think in general the conference is a little weaker, but Voorhees always will be there, North Hunterdon will vie for top spot,” Rosenthal said. “Ridge and Hunterdon Central will be there, and I think Bernards lost some of their top seven.”
The Raiders are hoping that their less experienced runners can come along quickly as they look to compete. Tubby has the clear lead, but it will take more than one great runner to do well. But they have the potential to do well.
“Our next group is sophomores and juniors,” Rosenthal said. “Our focus has been four through 12, getting that whole pack moved up. The sophomores are working harder than ever. I’ve had to work them harder than I maybe should have, but we have to close that gap.
“I have five or six sophomores within three or four seconds of each other. That’s the same group from last year that took second at Thompson Park behind CBA.”
Hillsborough got its first taste of competition Wednesday in a dual meet at Phillipsburg. They will have another chance to compete early in the year at the Thompson Park Class Meet. While the Raiders don’t want to emphasize too much the early meets, they are important for figuring out who fits in the top seven.
“Besides Brandon, I don’t know who’s going to be in the top seven,” Rosenthal told his team in preseason. “Usually you have three or four guys. They all know it’s open.”
Rosenthal sees the competition as good for his team. He has seen them push each other to improve.
“They’re a close group too,” Rosenthal said. “They hang together outside of practice. It’s more like a healthy sibling rivalry. They’re a really close group, from Brandon’s group down to the freshmen and sophomores. I think it helps that Brandon has a brother who’s a sophomore. It bonded them a little more.”
The Raiders opened the year with about 65 on their boys roster. They have been working to improve their speed and strength through a variety of training.
“We’re doing a lot of cross training workouts,” Rosenthal said. “We’re doing hills at least three days per week. We do brick workouts — biking and running. When you’re done, your legs feel like bricks. Even though we’re moving them along with training, I’m trying to cross train them with the bike so it’s low impact. And we’re doing lots and lots of hills — this is the most hills I’ve done with a group this early in the season. It’s for strength. Their knees, shins and ankles, they’re still growing at this point, and they need to get stronger.”
The Raiders would like to see all their work will pay off on the race course. They are just beginning to take shape and the big races are still far away before they determine first who will be running for the team before they try to figure out how well they can do.
“We’ll really see at Shore Coaches,” Rosenthal said. “I think I’m a month away from seeing who my top seven are.” 