By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
The Princeton High boys cross country team went into last weekend’s Central Jersey Group IV with high expectations.
The Little Tigers did not disappoint.
Princeton captured the sectional championship by placing six of its runners in the top 17 to easily outdistance WW-P South for the team title. The Little Tigers finished with 44 points, while the Pirates were second with 89 points. Montgomery finished fourth and along with the Little Tigers and Pirates, advanced to the Group IV state meet.
Princeton, which established a Thompson Park course record with a 16:05 per runner average for its top five, was led by its top three of Alex Roth (fourth), Will Hare (sixth) and Acascio Pinhiero (seven). But the performance by the Little Tigers became dominant when Nicholas Delaney finished 11th, Alex Ackerman was 16th and Jackson Donahue finished 17th.
“We all season kind of talked about redefining who we were going to be as a cross country team and particularly how fast and how special as a group we could be,” Princeton coach Jim Smirk said. “I think that showed on Saturday. I also think what we accomplished started a long time before that. If we were looking for a preview of how Saturday would go, I think we saw that in winning the JV race at the Freshman/Sophomore state meet a few days earlier with our 8-15 runners at a 17:02 average.”
Princeton’s performance at the sectional meet was a dominant one as they pulled away from a talented WW-P South team to easily win one of the state’s toughest sectional races.
“Alex (Roth) took an aggressive race approach,” Smirk said. “He knew exactly how good Rey Rivera (of Old Bridge, the race winner) was and has a ton of respect for Rey. But he also said he was going to race and see what he could do. In the end it was not the fastest race, but the rest of them latched onto that idea and Will and Acascio used that as fuel to break the race wide open. Nick and Alex Ackerman and Jackson Donahue and the whole team were impressive with their finishes considering they had run so hard to that point.”
For Delaney, being healthy and being able to be a part of the success the Little Tigers have enjoyed this season has been special.
“Last year I came into cross country with no mileage because I was not able to run over summer,” Delaney said. “I broke my foot at the end of spring track and was not able to run in postseason meets. I had an inconsistent season cross country season. Sectionals was a good meet, but I dropped out of states and ran poorly at the Meet of Champs. I thought our entire team had a lot more focused training over the summer and ran a lot more consistent this year.”
Delaney was part of a strong and deep effort from Princeton, which hopes to come up with another strong effort this weekend at Holmdel Park in the Group IV state meet.
“All seven of us PRed by at least six seconds, so it was really awesome,” Delaney said. “We fixed a bit of the compression problem which we were hoping to accomplish. A couple meets before it was Roth, Hare and Acascio leading us. For this meet our 4-7 runners really stepped up.
“The fast race helped a lot. We went out much faster than counties. Me and Jackson and Alex Ackerman were all kind of struggling trying to figure out how to race during the dual meets. We’d often find ourselves in no mans land waiting to kick. This time we set a goal to go out strong. I think we accomplished that.”
WW-P South put five runners in the top 26 to finish second. Joshua Forrest was ninth and Tim Magoun was 10th to lead the Pirates. Justin Lopez was 21st, Alex Petri was 23rd and Kevin Hudson finished 26th.
“I was very satisfied with the boys,” South coach Kurt Wayton said. “Whether you win or lose you want five guys to go out and race and put themselves in the best position to do well. If it adds up, it adds up. If it doesn’t add up, it doesn’t. We had five guys go out and do the best they could on that day. Am I sorry to lose to a fantastic Princeton team? No.”
Montgomery was led by Ajay Sarathy, who was fifth overall. The Cougars’ Robert Tidona was 24th and Pranav Reddy finished 25th.
“I was very excited about the boys’ performance,” Montgomery coach Tim Bartholomew said. “We knew they all had great potential to be in the mid 16s I was excited to see a lot of the boys had nice meets and were able to perform at the right time. In July, when we started summer runs our goal was to get out of the sectional. It was nice to be able to check that off.
“This Central Jersey Group 4 meet might have been the fastest sectional meet I have been a part of. Old Bridge ran 16:29 and didn’t get out. It was a very impressive race. They all did what we expected and beyond. to do They all stepped up.
The WW-P North boys were second in North Jersey, Section 2 Group III, just 10 points behind Colts Neck for the top spot. Matthew Santamaria finished seventh and Vedang Lad was eighth to pace the Knights. North packed its next four runners together, finishing 21st through 24th with John Mundia, Atharv Kulkarni, Evan Hughes and Jonathan Logan.
“They were definitely ready,” North coach Brian Gould said of his team. “Colts Neck was supposed to run away with that section and win easily. Our top five went in with a chip on their shoulder and raced hard. We packed nicely in the middle of the race and pushed each other forward, That is the way they train.”
Santamaria had missed the entire season before finally getting a chance to run in the sectional meet.
“Saturday was Matt’s first race,” Gould said. “Vedang is a sophomore in his first year of cross country and he has had an outstanding first season. He has really stepped and gone to the front and learned through his racing. Matt had an injury at the end of the summer and needed some time to shut down and recover. He performed above and beyond what we could have imagined. He was out five-and-a-half weeks and I know for him that felt like an eternity. Running your first race of the year at sectionals is tough on the nerves. But he is a competitor and once the gun shot he got out and competed.”
