By Bob Nuse, Sports Edotor
With the Mercer County Championship meet scheduled to take place on Sunday, Packet-area teams had a chance to get in a final tuneup when they participated in the state Group relay meets last weekend., In the state Group IV meet, the Princeton High boys picked up a win when they captured the distance medley in 10:20.82 behind the performance of Alex Roth, Will Hare, Oliver Hamit and Cy Watsky. The Little Tigers’ 4×800 was fourth with Roth, Watsky, Jackson Donahue and Hare. Overall, Princeton finished seventh as a team with 14 points., “They broke their own school record that they had set at the Lavino Relays,” Princeton boys coach Ben Samara said. “Everything in the winter is gearing up towards this weekend and what we’re trying to accomplish indoors. The winter season is primarily a training season. But any time you have a chance to win a title you want to give it a shot. And with our distance success we have a shot in any meet we are in. We’ve worked hard to add some pieces around that core.”, The Mercer meet will be very competitive with the likes of Nottingham, Hopewell Valley, Trenton, West Windsor-Plainsboro North and WW-P South all in the mix for the team title., “We’ve had our eye on Nottingham since the beginning of the season,” Samara said. “We’re excited to go head to head with them. They had tied Hopewell for the Group 3 relays title. There is so much talent in the county. It should be a great meet. We have had the date circled on our calendar for a while.”, The Little Tigers performed very well at the state relays, led by that strong distance group., “We were missing some guys,” Samara said. “Nick Delaney had to take the SAT. But we were able to sub in Oliver at the 400 in the DMR. Not having Nick hurt in the 4×8. We had to shuffle some other events. So it was not our best lineup. Our main goal was to win the DMR and get a good time for that DMR and then try to lower the time again at Easterns and then nationals and Penn Relays. That is the ultimate goal, to have the team qualify for that.”, West Windsor-Plainsboro South finished the meet with four points, earning fifth-place finishes in the distance medley with Joshua Forrest, Ryan Joseph, Tim Magoun and Alex Petri, as well as the high jump relay with A’Nan Bridgett and Xavier Smith., In the Group III boys meet, WW-P North finished tied for sixth with 13 points., The Knights finished third in the sprint medley with Kent DePasquale, Myles Fye-Moore, John Owens and Atharv Kulkarni, as well as third in the distance medley with Fye-Moore, Pranod Gottipatti, Luke Johnson and Matthew Santamaria. North was also sixth in the 4×200 with Kent DePasquale, Myles Williamson, Fye-Moore and Owens., “It was a pretty good day,” North coach Brian Gould said. “We had good efforts from Miles and John Owens. Luke, who is a freshman, had a good day. Miles Williamson and Atharv had good days. We had a lot of guys contribute. We had some relays we expected to do well, like the distance medley. And then the 4×2 was seeded 16th and took sixth. So they over-performed., “There was a lot of depth at the meet. The team championship was a three-way tie with Hopewell Valley, Nottingham and West Morris-Mendham all with 22 points. And we had 13. So seven teams were within nine points. There was a lot of depth and the points were spread out.”, In the girls Group IV meet, Montgomery finished in fifth place in the 4×200 relay with the team of Sarah Knight, Emma Raccaro, Sophia Sharpless and Camille Negron., The Mercer meet will be held on Sunday at Lawrenceville. The field events get underway at 9 a.m.
