By JEFF WOLFE
Courier-Post Staff

Saturday, October 29, 2005

DEPTFORD

It's true that Cherokee's Greg Bredeck and Cherry Hill East's Teresa Cattuna each led their teams to victory at the Olympic Conference meet on Friday at Gloucester County College.

Bredeck won the boys' race in 16:05 and the Chiefs won the team competition with 27 points, ahead of Triton's 55. Cattuna won the girls' race in 18:44 as the Cougars won the team competition with 53 points, ahead of Cherokee's 62.

But for another key to their teams' success, it may be just as important to look at how each of their teams' fourth runners.

For Cherokee, senior Vinny Marziano has been hampered much of the season by a severely strained calf muscle. But that has not stopped him from doing all that is necessary to get ready for races as he finished 10th in 16:47.

"He's our team captain and rightfully so," said Bredeck. "He's always on the bike or in the pool and has worked really hard to get himself ready to run."

Cherokee certainly was ready to run on Friday. Bredeck led a 1-2-3 finish for the Chiefs, No. 3 in the Courier-Post Top 20. Sophomore Alex Yersak, who stayed with Bredeck for the first 2.5 miles, was second in 16:10 and Rich Nelson was third in 16:32. Colin Cunningham rounded out the scorers by finishing 11th in 17:00.

Before Friday, the Cherry Hill East girls were having trouble rounding out their scoring. While they had been solid with four runners, finding that fifth and final scoring runner had been a problem. But Ashley Showers, who has also battled leg injuries this season, made sure there were no problems for at least one race as she finished 16th in 20:17.

"I have everything wrong below my knees," Showers said. "It hurts no matter what I do. I've been swimming a lot at night, too, that way I can still get my heart rate up."

Showers' goal Friday was to stay with teammate Jackie Gobel.

"Jackie and I wanted to stay together," Showers said. "I wasn't going to let them go today."

Behind Cattuna for East were Missy Showers in sixth at 19:49, Alaina Chodoff in ninth at 19:55, then Gobel, who turned out to be the fourth-ranked Cougars' fifth runner in this race, in 21st at 20:28.

"This builds our confidence a lot," Ashley Showers said of the win. "Hopefully sectionals will turn out this way, too."