Inquirer Suburban Staff
Cherokee's Paul McFadden is one of the top returning runners in South Jersey.
He is a better runner now than he was last fall, when he finished 92d at the Meet of Champions, making him eighth among returning South Jersey runners.
You might never see his name again in a story about Cherokee cross-country, though. It might not even appear in the small print of the results.
That's not an indictment of McFadden but a testimony as to how good Cherokee is expected to be.
"I'm hoping just to be our sixth or seventh man," McFadden, a senior, said, "but I know there are seven or eight guys behind me willing to take me out.
"If someone back there pushes me out, I'd be happy. I don't want it to happen, but if they do take my spot, it just makes our team that much better."
Cherokee has been one of the most dominant teams in South Jersey for most of the last decade, but it had to watch as Haddonfield won the Meet of Champions in 2001, and Mainland won it the last two seasons.
Cherokee, twice second, twice third and never out of the top six in the last seven years, enters 2004 with arguably its best team and its best chance to win that elusive Meet of Champions.
If the Chiefs do so, it will be as much because of their depth in the back as their talent in the front.
"It's a credit to how much work we've put in," said senior Tom Yersak, who will share the lead role with senior Sean McLaughlin. "Maybe we don't have the talent and the great runners we've had in the past, but we have such a great pack."
But despite having six of the top 36 returning runners based on last year's Meet of Champions - and no other team has more than three in that same group - Cherokee enters the season ranked third in the state, behind Christian Brothers Academy and Toms River North, based on rankings for the new Nike team national championships.
"They don't get the respect because they don't have the stud frontrunner, but they're so loaded," Triton coach Kevin Pumphrey said. "They have so much depth... . If you're hoping they're going to have a bad race, it's not going to happen. They just have too many guys."
Most top teams have the requisite complement of two or three strong runners. What makes the difference, though, is often a team's fourth, fifth and sixth runners. It's a team's depth - its pack - that can carry a team to a championship.
Put another way, in cross-country, where a team lines up seven runners and its top five runners score, a frontrunner who has a bad day might drop from first to fifth and cost his team four points. But a pack runner who has a bad day could drop from 50th to 80th in a matter of seconds and cost his team 30 points.
"To me cross-country is the epitome of team sport," Cherokee coach Steve Shaklee said. "I remember a year when North Hunterdon had [the first two finishers] and didn't win. You need a lot more than a couple of individuals to win. You have to have a group where everyone is working on the same task."
And that seems to be what Cherokee has. The Chiefs have a couple of top individuals in McLaughlin and Yersak, but they also have a pack of runners who push each other every day to get better and pull each other along when one of them is sagging.
McLaughlin and Yersak finished 29th and 38th, respectively, at last year's Meet of Champions, making them sixth and eighth among returning runners. Greg Bredeck, a junior, wasn't far behind in 44th, making him 12th among returning runners.
Bredeck has a solid hold on the No. 3 spot, but the battle for the last four spots on the varsity, which can have a different group from race to race, is intense. Seniors James Maneval, Mike Candy and McFadden were all on the varsity last season, but seniors Matt Dolan and juniors Will Andes, Vinny Marziano and Rich Nelson aren't far behind.
While the depth gives Cherokee a margin for error as a team, it doesn't afford that same luxury to any of the individuals. One bad race and a runner could find himself out of the lineup.
"There's a definite competition because 10 guys feel like they can be in the top seven," Shaklee said. "They all know this. They know if they're not doing the right things to get prepared, someone else is going to take their spot."
Perhaps that is why this year's team has worked harder than any other Shaklee has coached. Ten runners logged at least 500 miles in a nine-week span this summer. For a few that work will likely pay off with a spot in the lineup.
"I think those kids [in the pack] are some of the toughest runners around," McLaughlin said. "They do the work day in and day out and at the end of the season, they still might not be there. They're working every day and they don't know if they're going to be in a state championship race or a [junior varsity] race."