MARLTON — Cherokee High School senior Shawn Wilson wanted to get off to a great start this cross country season and he did that in grand fashion at his home course on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
He ran at a blistering pace, setting the course record at the 17th annual Cherokee Challenge, crossing the finish line in a time of 9 minutes and 26 seconds, topping the previous course record by two seconds.
The 2011 Courier-Post Boys’ Cross Country Runner of the Year got out in front and pretty much stayed there the remainder of the way and cruised to the win in the senior boys’ division and his time was the fastest time of the day in all the boys’ varsity races. Delsea’s Nick Costello was second in the senior boys’ division in 9:38, which was also the second-fastest time of the day for the boys.
Hammonton’s Louis Corgliano won the junior boys’ race in 9:40, which was the third-fastest time overall for the varsity boys, while Sterling’s Jimmy Daniels was fourth in the senior boys’ race in 9:43, the fifth-fastest time for high school boys on the day.
The high school runners ran a 3,200 meter race, while the middle school runners ran a 2,400 meter race in a meet that officially kicks off the cross country season.
“From the beginning, it went out extremely fast, so I kind of had to go with the group,” said Wilson, who had the fastest time last year in 9:52.50 “I went faster than I was planning, but honestly, I'm glad it went out that fast. It gave me a group to go with, most of them holding on for at least a mile, some of them went on two. It was real nice. The hills, that’s my thing. I think that’s where I got all my space from the race.
“It’s definitely an honor. The Ocean City kid (Miles Schoedler in 2010) had got it before. He was a great runner and it’s just nice to bring the course record back to the school that has the run. It makes me really happy.”
His coach was pretty pleased as well. The Cherokee coaches had a feeling that Wilson might set a record.
“This race is like that (gets out fast), because you have so many people on the starting line, everybody’s trying to get a good position off the line, so they end up sprinting pretty hard in the beginning,” Cherokee coach Steve Shaklee said. “Shawn handles that pretty well. That works to his favor. He’s fit and he’s a strong kid. We kind of expected that he might be able to do something like this, even in his first race.
“We set (the race) up 17 years ago with the idea that we wanted to have kind of a fun way to start the season, make it kind of festive, run a little shorter. We only go two miles instead of 3.1. It’s grown every year. This is the biggest year we've ever had.”