By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
When Miles Fye-Moore took a fall during the finals of the 55-meter hurdles at last weekend’s North Jersey, Section 2 Group III sectional indoor track meet, he hoped it didn’t cost his team a shot at a championship., “When it happened, I was unsure because I didn’t know how the rest of the meet would go,” Fye-Moore said. “But my teammates picked me up and made sure my head was up for the rest of my races. We have a lot of good kids. We have a lot of young freshmen and sophomores.”, Those good kids all came through and picked up Fye-Moore as the team put together a strong performance to capture the sectional title that had just eluded them a year earlier. The Knights finished with 50 points, which put them 14 points ahead of second-place Chatham., “We had a good shot,” North coach Brian Gould said of his team’s chances entering the meet. “With everything online now, you know what everyone is showing up with. So we were favored to win. Getting to a meet and doing it is very different. I know the guys were motivated to get it done. We lost a close one last year so there was a lot of motivation.”, Fye-Moore won the 55-meter dash in 6.64, while Atharv Kulkarni was first in the 800 meters in 1:59.69. Those two winners, coupled with the Knights’ depth, were enough for a sectional title. Luke Johnson was second and Matt Santamaria was third in the 1,600 meters, while Santamaria was fourth and Vedang Lad was fifth in the 3,200 meters, The Knights’ 4×400 relay of Fye-Moore, Evan Francis, Kulkarni and Myles Williamson finished second, while Theo Yasson finished fifth in the shot put., “Theo, our shot putter, was seeded seventh and he finished fifth,” Gould said. “So those were a couple unexpected points. Atharv Kulkarni was seeded second in the 800 and he won. Luke Johnson and Matt Sanatmaria, our milers, finished higher. On a whole, everybody really stepped up and exceeded their personal responsibilities and that added up. So with a couple of miscues we had over the course of the day, it made the difference. Our relay finished second at the end and we weren’t supposed to finish second.”, Fye-Moore rebounded from the spill in the hurdles to win the 55-meter dash. He’s come a long way from his freshman year and is now one of the top performers in the state in a number of different events., “He just keeps getting better,” Gould said. “He was a promising freshman. He was a little bit better as a sophomore. He had an excellent junior year, indoor and outdoor. I think of all of our guys, he is one of the guys that took that close loss last year the most personally and he has really been on a mission all year. He has tremendous drive and resiliency. He is enjoying the fruits of really hard work in the cold months and bad weather. It is paying off. It’s easy in the winter to take days off and he doesn’t do that.”, While he would have liked to have placed in the hurdles, Fye-Moore was happy his team came back with some hardware after just missing out a year ago., “It was good to be able to put the trophy in the trophy case,” he said. “Last year we lost by four or six points. To be that close to accomplishing something we all worked so hard for and then not get it, we all kept our motivation up for this year., “I just try to focus on improving and always setting higher goals each season. I just started doing hurdles this year, but I have done a lot of different events over the years. I like doing different things. Whatever I can do to help my team win, I’ll do. I don’t really have one main event.”, Fye-Moore is a versatile athlete who has run the 100, 200 and 400 outdoors, as well as compete in some field events. He’s added the hurdles this year and just keeps getting better. This weekend he and the Knights will compete in the state Group III meet in Toms River., “I’m looking forward to competing well this weekend and seeing if I can get to the Meet of Champs,” Fye-Moore said. “I am also looking forward to seeing how my team does. We have some young kids that I think can do some special things.”, The WW-P North girls finished fourth at the sectional meet with 24 points. While the Knights did not win an event, they were able to score points in several. Kayla Tulloch was third in the 55-meter dash, Emma Faivre was fifth in the 400 meters, Calia Cordasco was fifth in the 1,600 meters, Aditi Parekh was third in the 55-meter hurdles, Veda Donthireddy was fifth in the 3,200 meters, and Anjali Chandrasekhar was fourth in the pole vault. The Knights were also fifth in the 4×400 relay with Faivre, Tulloch, Parekh and Kruti Shah.
