Pirates senior off to nationals XC
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
While the cross country season ended for many, Nikhil Pulimood extended his season to the limits at the Nike Northeast Regionals on Saturday.
The senior runner will represent his West Windsor-Plainsboro High South school at the Nike Nationals next week after placing in the top five at regionals at Bowdoin Park in New York. Pulimood was third overall in 16:05.20 to trail Ridgefield’s Austin Gilbert (16:01.20) and Christian Brother’s Academy’s Blaise Ferro (16:02.70).
”Nikhil was in control of the race and took a horrible fall,” said Pirates head coach Kurt Wayton. “He went from first to sixth or seventh. He spent a lot of energy getting back into the race, and that took a lot away from his kick. It was pretty clear he was going to win.
”The fact that they ran as fast as they did in those conditions was remarkable,” he added. “The course was impossibly terrible.”
The Pirates had been hoping that they would advance at least a second runner. Tim Bason placed 12th in 16:26.40, just outside the range of finishers to advance.
”He just missed, and he caught a ton of people the last mile,” Wayton said. “He had a rough middle of the race.”
The junior will return a stronger runner for the experience. He broke through into that upper echelon while he aims to take the place of Pulimood at the South front.
”It’s exciting,” Wayton said. “It was an exciting season on the boys side. A lot of people counted us out. For us to finish sixth at the Meet of Champs and we were 11th without our fourth guy, we ran with some non-scorers, I was happy with the season we had.
”I take a lot of pride in that and I know the kids do too. I’m proud of Nikhil, and now we have to think about how we develop these kids so we have another good year next year.”
WW-P South was short-handed, but still finished 11th in the regional. Their team average was 10th best overall. Sam Williams was 67th, Zabih Kotecha was 128th and Tom Moxham closed out their scoring in 154th. Harish Venkatraman was 172nd and Joshua Zaklis was 218th. They will be cheering on Pulimood as he represents them in nationals.
”We’ve had people make it to nationals,” Wayton said. “If he has a good day, he might be able to pull it off. As good as the other athletes that have made it were, I’m not sure that was the idea. This is pretty exciting.
”In the last two weeks, at Meet of Champions he feels he made a few tactical errors down the stretch, and with the fall, those are things we could improve on. As long as he doesn’t make any tactical errors and doesn’t fall, he could make a dent in it.”
The Princeton High boys placed 34th. Noah Chen was 152nd, Jacob Rist was 223rd, Jonathan Petrozzini took 233rd, Nicholas Delaney was 241st, Alex Ackerman was 245th, Patrick O’Connell was 258th and Aidan Donahue ran to 278th.
On the girls’ side, WW-P South finished 14th overall while Princeton was 14 points behind them in 15th. Christina Rancan led the Pirates in 30th in 19:44.
”She was in the mix the first mile and a half,” said Pirate girls coach Josh Siegel. “It wasn’t until late in the race that she lost her position. She was in the top five in the first mile and a half, which was pretty awesome.”
Deirdre Casey was 62nd, Edlyn Gulama took 94th, Alex Hesterberg was 126th and Haley Rich was 138th. Elizabeth Petrov was 166th and Amy Tsai was 205th.
”The conditions made it very difficult,” Siegel said. “It was a nice equalizer. It really put everyone on the same playing field.
”It was a tough race. We knew it was going to be going into it. The last couple weeks, we struggled a bit. We didn’t end where we were capable of, I think, but we did all right.”
Lou Miahle was tops for the Little Tigers in 56th in 20:10.10. Mary Sutton was 79th and Paige Metzheiser was 80th, Chloe Taylor came in 92nd and Sophia Zahn ran to 161st. Emma Eikelberner was 174th and Sarah Klebanov was 197th.
”Our effort was great,” said PHS head coach Jim Smirk. “We showed we’re growing a bit as a program to get to this meet and do well. Historically, we’ve been kind of tired when we’ve gotten here. We did well.
”We let the athletes kind of shine and get themselves ready to race,” he added. “They did a nice job with it. We didn’t have the nicest race across the board, but our seniors did well. We have a freshman Chloe Taylor, it was great to get her out there. She was fourth for us.”
For all but Pulimood, the regional race was the final one of the cross country season. They will take a little time to rest before starting to gear up for the winter track and field season.
”I’m not sure if they’re ready for the season to be over,” Smirk said of his team. “I think they’re pretty excited about what we accomplished and are carrying it on right through the winter.”