Bucs beat Matawan, win Holmdel Relays Harris, Kingsbery star as Bucs end Huskies’ 9-year B North dominance I
The dual meet win against Matawan snapped a 10-year losing streak and all but brought an end to the Huskies’ nine-year reign as the Shore Conference B North Division champions.
Red Bank’s 72-59 win put a decade of frustration behind the Bucs. Although on paper the Bucs were a solid favorite, coach Cory Radcliffe knew that alone, wouldn’t be enough. Twice in the last three years the Bucs had appeared headed towards a win only to have something go wrong. The Huskies appeared to have their number. Despite that history, the Bucs were a confident team when they took the track on April 12 at home.
"The kids had been pointing towards this meet, they really wanted to win it," said Radcliffe. "They were very confident. We knew that if we did well on the track and in the jumping events, it would work out for us. Everyone performed excellently."
The very first race of the meet turned out to be a positive omen for the Bucs. Jordan MacNeil ripped off a school record 55.9 to win the intermediate hurdles.
"I knew right then and there we’d win the meet," said Radcliffe. "Matawan has always stepped up in this meet and sometimes their athletes have turned in their best performances of the year here. When Jordan ran that school record, I knew that our kids were raising their level."
Red Bank dominated on the track, behind Jamel Harris’s triple and Walton Kingsbery’s double. Harris won the 100- (10.7) and 200-meter (22.6) dashes and the 110-meter high hurdles (14.9).
Kingsbery captured the 1,600 (4:40) and 3,200 (10:23) double. Jon Crook won the 800-meter for (2:35) and ran a leg on the 1,600-meter relay team that included Topher Ruggiero, Joel Gray and MacNeil. that won in 3:46 and gave Red Bank a win in all but one event on the track. That was the 400 meters which went to Shaun Artis (51.4).
Matawan had the edge, as expected, in the throwing events but, a big second place finish by Sam Kiningham in the discus prevented a sweep by the Huskies cutting Red Bank’s loses.
Harris made it a four-win meet by leaping 21-10 in capturing the long jump and MacNeil added the high jump (6-2) to his 400 hurdles win. Those wins put Red Bank over the top and in the B North driver’s seat.
Red Bank’s week didn’t stop with the dual meet victory. On Saturday the Bucs turned back the Huskies again, 67-60, to win the Division II championship at the Holmdel Relays.
"We had a lot of really good performances in the dual meet against Matawan and it carried over to Holmdel," Radcliffe remarked.
Harris and Kingsbery were big in Holmdel. They were teamed up on the Bucs’ meet record-setting Sprint Medley Relay team. Gray and Steve Troxal ran the 200-meter legs of the relay and Harris, the 400. Kingsbery ran the anchor 800 meters stopping the clock at 3:39.2 shaving .4 seconds off the old meet record of 3:39.6 co-held by Vailsburg (1974) and Monmouth Regional (1988).
Kingsbery’s scorching 1:55.1 800 meters enabled the Bucs to come from way back to win the 3,200 meters in 8:19.4. The All-American made up 80 meters on his anchor leg. Crook, Jovannie Cortez and Steve Troxal were the other members of the winning relay team.
Red Bank also captured the Shuttle Hurdles dramatically. Lead-off runner Ruggiero fell on the seventh hurdle, but was able to complete his run. That put the Bucs in a hole that is all but impossible to comeback from, in such a short race, but MacNeil and Aljerome Bailey ran outstanding legs to put Harris within striking distance. A 14.5 anchor leg by Harris carried the Bucs to the win in 1:06.8.
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ed Bank’s other win on the day was in the pole vault where Jeff Arek soared to a meet record 13-7 to help the Huskies win the relay at 23-7. Joe Walker teamed with Arek.
It was a banner day for the local teams at Holmdel as Red Bank’s girls joined their brethren as Division II champions and Red Bank Catholic captured the girls’ Division I crown.
In Round Two of what should be a season-long battle between the Bucs and Middletown South, Red Bank’s girls topped the Eagles, 90-56, reversing their two-point loss to South at the Husky Relays.
The Bucs used their wealth of talent to dominate at Holmdel; winning sprint, hurdles, distance and jumping events.
Rosalie Bostic, Melissa Taylor, Elizabeth Russell and Nicole Cirillo scored a pair of wins for the Red Bank teaming up to take the 400-meter relay (51.1) and the 800-meter relay (1:50.6).
In the Sprint Medley, Taylor Coclais, Elizabeth Hayes, Taylor and Lindsay Hayes won in 4:34.2.
The distance medley allowed the Bucs’ distance stars, led by the Trotter sisters, to strut their stuff. Kelly Trotter, Christine Hurley, Sarah Trotter and Amanda Trotter smashed the old meet record of 12:43.1, set by Summit way back in 1980, with their 12:28.0.
The Bucs girls swept both hurdles relays. Melissa Dooley, Lindsay Hayes and and Coclais teamed up to take the intermediate hurdles in 3:38.3 while in the shuttle hurdles, it was the quartet of Dooley, Lindsay Hayes, Russell and Cirillo that brought home top honors in 1:08.2.
Cirillo and Russell gave Red Bank its second meet record when they jumped a combined 31-7 3/4 besting the old Holmdel Relay mark by South Brunswick in 1995 (30-7) by more than a foot.
The Caseys dominated Division I with their depth, rolling to a 32-point win over Kingsway (96-64). Mary Banks’ Caseys won in all track disciplines.