Mike O’Dowd, a senior at Iona College, won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Cross-Country Championship this fall. The Colts Neck High School graduate captured the championship at Rosedale Park in Pennington, the home course for Rider University.
O’Dowd led Iona to a sweep of the top seven positions, winning the 8K race in 23:44.3.
Iona won the team championship with a dual-meet shutout score of 15 points. Monmouth University was fourth (115), led by Freehold Township High School graduate Graham Huggins-Filozof, who was 13th (24:27.9). He and O’Dowd raced often in high school.
After leading the Gaels to the conference title, O’Dowd finished seventh at the NCAA Northeast Region Championships at Franklin Park in Boston, Massachusetts. He posted a time of 24:58.0 for the 8K race.
Iona was second to Syracuse University, 19-32, and qualified for the NCAA Division I championships in Louisville, Kentucky, where O’Dowd was 62nd overall, clocking a time of 30:41.1 for the 10K course.
The Gaels finished sixth with 174 points.
St. John Vianney High School’s all-around state champion Kristen Politz, who lives in Marlboro, and Marlboro High School’s Melissa Astarita were named to the New Jersey Girls Gymnastics Coaches Association’s All-State Team for the all-around. Astarita, a sophomore, finished third in the all-around at the NJSIAA Championships won by Politz, a senior, headed next year to Penn State University.
Freehold Township High School distance runner Ciara Roche announced she will continue her academic and athletic career at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
The senior has been a state champion, All-American and national champion as part of the Patriots’ national championship 4×800 relay team at Freehold Township. She recently gained all-state honors in cross-country.
The Battle of Monmouth (BOM) SC Renegades U15 girls ended the fall 2015 Monmouth Ocean Soccer Association (MOSA) season as National 1 flight champions. They finished the season with a record of 6-1-1, with 22 goals scored and only five goals against. The team also registered four clean sheets on their way to claiming the flight title.
The BOM Renegades are Marisa Brandon, Kiersten Breyta, Kristen Chaballa, Isabella DeFabritus, Abrian Diaz, Oliva Douglas, Delaney Engel, Ruth Fossetta, Catherine Gibson, Eva Gibson, Abigail Laverde, Lauren Lovato, Lindsay McCabe, Stephanie Napolitano, Krista Panariello, Olivia Szajdecki and Victoria Tilton.
The Renegades are coached by Rich DeFabritus and Ed Szajdecki.