Nicole Ragucci did nothing but succeed with grace in four years at MTHS
By Rich Fisher, Sports Editor
Thursday night marked the end of an era for Monroe Township High School athletics.
Call it what you want. A spectacular era, an exciting era, a classy era, a memorable era.
Better yet, roll them all into one and call it the Nicole Ragucci Era.
And if you’re associated with MTHS athletics in any way, feel fortunate that you were part of it.
Ragucci competed in her final track & field events at Thursday’s NJSIAA Meet of Champions (held after press time), where she was expected to run the 400 meters, do the pole vault and anchor the relay team. Whether she won, lost or fell down out of the starting blocks is a moot point.
She will graduate later this month as one of the truly special athletes to ever walk the halls of Monroe High.
Every spring and winter, when all other Falcon teams were done playing, Ragucci was still out there, bringing positive recognition to her school and team.
”She’s taken this program to a new level,” Falcons girls track coach Jim Cox said. “Not only individually has she been one of the best athletes this school and Middlesex County has ever seen, but she’s elevated everybody around her to a different level.
”She’s probably my favorite kid I’ve coached (in 17 years). I coached a Meet of Champions winner at Mount St. Mary’s and Nicole could stand up to her any time. She might not win a Meet of Champions, but what Nicole brings to the table is more important. She’s just a great kid.”
How great?
Let us count the ways.
First of all, she’s been great enough to get a scholarship to a little place called Duke University. You might have heard of it. They play some basketball down there, and it’s also one of the top academic schools in the country.
Speaking of basketball …
”It’s already started; I have a whole list of everyone that wants tickets,” Ragucci said. “From teachers, cousins, friends, uncles. It’s crazy.” (The Cranbury Press is on record as only asking for tickets to the North Carolina game. Surely an easy task.)
Ragucci did not decide on the Blue Devils until earlier this spring, narrowing her final choice down to Duke and Maryland.
”My college decision was hard,” Ragucci said. “It took a long time to figure everything out. But I love (Ryan Dall, pole vault/sprints/hurdles coach). He’s recruiting three other 400-meter runners so we’ll probably be on the 4×400 relay team. There’s another girl from South Jersey (Cherry Hill’s Brittany Whitehead) going, so we’ve already decided we’re going to room together.
”I’m really looking forward to next year. But it’s going to be hard saying goodbye to high school.”
It will be equally hard for Monroe to say goodbye to Ragucci, considering everything she has accomplished.
As a soccer player, she has been a consistent All-Area and All-Conference selection, be it at sweeper or forward. But it was on the track where she truly made her name.
”You can never underestimate Nicole and what she means to our kids,” Cox said after Saturday’s second-place showing in the 4×400 relay. “At the county relays, when we didn’t have her (due to a family issue), you could sense that the confidence level of the other three (relay members) was down. But today, before the race, their whole philosophy was to keep it close and we’ll have a shot, because Nicole is just that kind of competitor.
”I think she’s meant more to this program than any other kid in the program’s history.”
Always more of a team player than an individual, Ragucci can’t even name her accomplishments in track and field.
She has won countless Greater Middlesex Conference and Central Jersey Group III sectional championships in numerous events in both indoor and outdoor.
Ragucci estimates making the outdoor Meet of Champions in the 400 and 200 meters as a sophomore and a junior (finishing a career-best fifth in the 400 as a soph and sixth last hear), along with her three events this year. She also has run the 55 meters and done pole vault at the indoor MOC.
This year, she blossomed in the pole vault, saying “I got back into the groove. But the school ordered a new pole, and that’s really what contributes.”
Ragucci finished fifth in both the 400 (56.53) at last Friday’s Group III meet and the pole vault (10-6) on Saturday.
”I didn’t do as well as I wanted in the 400,” she said. “But I’m still going to the Meet of Champions so that’s OK. And pole vault was not expected, so that was great.”
Despite her individual accomplishments, Ragucci’s biggest excitement at the Group III meet came when she, Katie Rusnock, Sierah Tyson and Christina Perrotta finished second in the 4×400 in a school-record time of 3:53.97.
Still gasping for breath, she couldn’t wait to talk about it after she ran anchor and brought the Falcons from fourth to second.
”We are so excited,” Ragucci said, huffing and puffing with a huge grin. “At Penn Relays we ran 3:59 and thought that was good, but this is great.”
When asked about how she hoped to do in the Meet of Champions, Ragucci smiled.
”Being it’s my last race, my mom might cry, I might cry,” she said with a laugh. “You know what, I don’t care if I make a statement. I don’t care of no one remembers me … well, actually, I do want to be remembered. But only by my teammates. I don’t care about any other team.”
Her teammates will have no problem remembering Ragucci.
”She sets a great example,” Tyson said. “With her being so good, it pushes us to be as good as her.”
Track exploits alone, however, usually aren’t enough to get into Duke.
Academically, Ragucci has a 94 average (out of 100), is class president and also a member of the Model UN.
”It’s kind of nerdy, but it’s fun,” she said.
So, it sounds like Ragucci had plenty of free time during the past four years.
”Oh yeah,” she said sarcastically. “That’s a joke. Homework and sports was my life.”
She will get some time to relax this summer, as Nicole and younger sister Vanessa (also on the track team) will spend time in Paris for an exchange program.
”I take French in school so I know the language pretty well, but she’s pretty nervous,” Ragucci said with a laugh.
After that, though, there will be plenty of training as Ragucci notes “summer time is pretty important. Since I’m just a freshman, I’m going to have to show them what I’ve got.”
She is set to report on Aug. 19. And though she will be gone from Monroe, Ragucci will never be forgotten.
In more ways than just winning races.
”The thing I’m most proud of with Nicole this year, was when we ran the GMC’s and she won the 400,” Cox recalled. “There was a girl from Piscataway at the finish who dove to try and get second place. The first thing Nicole did when she finished, was to turn around and help that kid to her feet.
”That’s her in a nutshell. That’s the perfect example of who Nicole Ragucci is. She’s not just a great athlete, she’s a great kid.”
A class-act kid, whose era will go down as one of the proudest, and most memorable, in MTHS history.