WW-P South, PHS, North boys teams are moving on
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Area boys runners garnered every sort of metal among the medals handed out at sectional cross country meets Saturday at Thompson Park.
There was gold from West Windsor-Plainsboro South’s Nikhil Pulimood, silver from a now healthy Princeton High School team, bronze from Pulimood’s Pirates team, a fourth for WW-P North and seventh for Montgomery High School. The top five teams advance to the group championships that will be held this Saturday at Holmdel Park.
Pulimood won gold at the Central Jersey Group IV championship. The WW-P South senior ran 15:40 to finish nine seconds ahead of Brick Memorial’s Kyle Mueller.
”The last two races, he’s run hard the last half,” said Pirates head coach Kurt Wayton. “We’ll go substantially earlier on Saturday (in the Group IV state meet) and hope to use his fitness. He’s ready to pop the big one. He has to continue to run with confidence. I don’t think he has to worry about much. Other people have to worry about him.”
Pirates junior Tim Bason was third in 15:53. Sam Williams placed 15th. Tom Moxham was 39th and Zach Crossey took 45th. Zabih Kotecha was 48th and Dexter Benkard was 50th. The Pirates placed third with 103 points. South Brunswick’s 47 points won and Old Bridge scored 77 for second. The Pirates’ 16:35 average was three seconds faster than Old Bridge’s.
”As good as South Brunswick is, if I look at my guys, we had three guys run reasonably well and that was our top three,” Wayton said. “I know our others can run with Sam Williams. If they do that, they would have displaced some of the South Brunswick guys.
”It’s not a matter of going down. It’s a matter of going down swinging. I don’t think we did that. Hopefully if we go down next week, we’ll go down swinging.”
Mark Shelley was happy to see his Princeton High team get back to full strength two weeks after a skeleton crew competed in the Mercer County Championships.
”We have been so banged up for a long time and had been zeroing in on sectionals,” said Shelley, the PHS head coach. “We finally got everyone healthy.
”We were 45 seconds faster on average than we were in counties,” he added. “That’s a big jump in two weeks. We were real pleased with that.”
Jacob Rist was ninth to lead PHS. Noah Chen was 10th. Alex Roth was 14th, James Cao ran to 23rd and Jonathan Petrozzini closed out their scoring in 25th. Aidan Donahue was 26th and Karl Bjorkman was 29th. The Little Tigers were second with 81 points. Colts Neck won with 42 points.
”Jacob Rist and Alex Roth are better, but with the injuries they had, they’re not where they would have been with consistent training,” Shelley said. “Our goal was to be firmly second, and see if we could go more than that.
”The key was we had a 37-second split between our 1 and 5. It’s what we preach and have been working on.”
Kian Jackson was the top finisher for the Knights in eighth place in 16:18 in CJ IV. Shu Ming Teoh was 28th, Rohan Doshi was 30th and Colin Stern placed 32nd. Justin Bauter rounded out the Knights’ scoring in 37th. Ishaan Waghray was 42nd. Yannik Cahnbley was 57th. Nicolaus Stalzer finished 71st.
”Kian ran well today,” said Knights head coach Brian Gould. “I watch these guys train together every single day. The hardest thing in cross country is getting everyone to throw caution to the wind and go for broke and have a great race. If they do that, I don’t think there’s any limit to how well these guys can do.”
The Knights scored 135 points for fourth place in CJ IV. They averaged 16:57 per runner.
”Sometimes I think making the Group IV meet is tougher than doing well in it,” Gould said. “We start training in July to run well at Holmdel in November. I think we’ve had some good teams not make it.”
Gould believes that his Knights can be a factor in the group meet. He still sees the potential for a better day than sectionals.
”I think there’s more in there, and I base that on what I see in practice and what I’ve seen in years past,” Gould said. “Racing is tough and I don’t believe our guys have raced to the best of their ability and I believe they will. I think they will next week. I think they’ll show up to Holmdel and have their best race of the year when it counts the most. They’ve worked so hard and I think they’ll earn great results and I think they’re coming next week.
Ajay Sarathy led the Montgomery High School boys team in 14th place in 16:37. Rahul Ramesh placed 17th. Taylor Gatt was 36th. Daniel Alttieri ran to 60th and Robert Dembinski was 80th. Patrick Fritzinger was 86th.
The Cougars finished two spots out of qualifying for the group race. Their 169 points trailed fifth-place Hunterdon Central (150) and Hillsborough (155). Montgomery averaged 17:09 per runner. Five of their top seven runners are seniors.