By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Cy Watsky has never been a part of a deeper or more driven Princeton High School boys cross country team.
The Little Tigers junior is part of the pack that is following Alex Roth and also trying to close the gap on their frontrunner in order to improve their team chances this year.
“It’s been great,” Watsky said. “We’ve been working through developing our core runners especially on the younger side and I think it’s paid off this season. We’ve had a lot of success so far.”
The Little Tigers were third in the Varsity B Division at the Shore Coaches Invitational to start the month and third in the Fall Classic at Thompson Park on Saturday, and they’re hoping to end the month with a Mercer County Championship crown and take aim at qualifying for Group IV states.
“Our perspective really changed coming into this season,” Watsky said. “We’ve been in sort of a transitional stage the last couple years. Now that we have it together, our goals are a lot higher. We got switched into Group IV this year, which is a lot more competitive than we’re used to. We just refocused and set our goals a lot higher.”
The Little Tigers are on target if their recent results are any indication of where they are headed. Roth was seventh overall at the Fall Classic in 16:13, William Hare followed in 17th in 16:44, Watsky was 22nd in a personal-record 16:55, Jeremy Taylor took 28th in 17:03 and Elliot Wailoo was 44th in 17:24. Eli Wasserman just missed scoring for PHS in 46th in 17:25.
“We’re seeing a positive trajectory in terms of their times coming down,” said PHS head coach Mark Shelley. “We have Alex Roth, but then we had 11 that ran under 18:00 at Holmdel, which is unreal. We’re trying to take advantage of that. They push each other at practice. It’s going to be a hard choice who’s running varsity at counties. After No. 4, we’re very interchangeable 5-11.
“It reminds of me when I coached in South Carolina, I was an assistant for a very elite program. We had one year where we were state runner-up. We all this depth 5-12. If you have the right guys, they push each other and cheer for each other. They all want to be out there, but they all help each other.”
Watsky has seen that dynamic developing among the PHS team this year. They came off a strong spring track season and jumped right into training together over the summer for cross country. With a group that has such balance, anyone can beat anyone.
“It’s great,” Watsky said. “It’s been great for practices. It’s a lot easier to work together on tempos and harder workouts and hill workouts. It’s nice to be able to push each other and get better. Every one of us is getting better. We keep putting different teams together on the line. It’s been great building off each other.”
As a third-year runner in the program, Watsky has tried to be more of a leader this season for the younger runners. He knows what was difficult for him as a young runner and can pass along advice. Watsky and his teammates have been healthier this year, which has helped training.
“There were a bunch of issues I had to work though,” Watsky said. “There were some form issues and injuries that kept me back last year. It was reworking my approach to racing and running during cross country and track and I think that’s paid off this year. We’ve incorporated a lot more strengthening and stability and core work. We had a bunch of injuries last year and this year we have hardly any among our top guys.”
Watsky was a part of the Little Tigers’ 4×800 relay that ran at nationals in spring track, and the shorter distances have been more his forte. Now he is starting to see success in cross country as well.
“It feels great,” he said. “I had more success in track than I did in cross country. I think just learning from the mistakes I’ve been making and putting it together for this season, it feels great to be running up to my ability. A big part of that is just understanding the process that Coach Shelley has and understanding how certain things that may seem small, like strengthening and form work, they really pay off in the end.”
Shelley has seen solid progress in his three years with the program. He’s happy to see PHS moving into a competitive spot.
“I’m good friends with John Woodside,” Shelley said. “He left a great foundation. We do some different approaches and the kids have bought into it and we’re lucky enough to have a lot of young talent come along in the last couple years. We think we can compete in the county race legitimately and going to Group IV is a bit daunting. We have work to do.”
With so much depth, the toughest decisions will be who exactly to run in the championship races. PHS has a lot of options.
“We think we match up better the bigger the race because our 4-7 are so strong,” Shelley said. “Hopefully our 2-3 can stay close to Alex and our 4-7 will put some distance between other teams.”
Watsky has poured more energy and effort into this cross country season than any previous year, and the results have shown up early. Now he and the Little Tigers are focusing on living up to their higher expectations to end the season well.
“It’s just great to be able to build a team,” Watsky said. “We’re still learning from the mistakes we make. We have a lot of success now and we know there’s still a lot to come.”
