On October 7, 2011, the varsity squad traveled to the Shore Coaches Invitational at Holmdel Park, the state's championship course. In their race, the team competed without top runner, Shawn Wilson, and usual 5th man, Rob Harper, and finished a scary 20th in the thirty-team A race. It was not a good team performance and it showed that Cherokee has a lot of work to do just to advance to the Group State Meet and return to Holmdel! Kaleb Burch was the team's top finisher in his first-ever race at Holmdel; and Matt Decker was 2nd for the team and improved his time from last year by 30 seconds to earn Runner of the Meet honors. Details at: MileSplit/NJRunners.
Earlier that morning, before the sun rose, Coach Shaklee and Shawn Wilson, accompanied by their faithful drivers, traveled to VanCortlandt Park in the Bronx of New York City to check out the course for the up-coming Footlocker Regional Championships. After that, Coach Shaklee headed for Holmdel while Shawn went fishing!
On October 12, 2012, the team traveled to Mill Creek Park in Willingboro for the Burlington County Open, also know as The County Championship! The team won last year for the twelth time in fifteen years but, with so many county teams having banner years, expectations were a little lower this year. That said, it was Cherokee's best race this year even though they only ended up 4th!
In the Varsity competition, Shawn Wilson ran easily for the first two miles and then picked it up a little over the last mile to win by 20 seconds, becoming the 5th County Champion from Cherokee and the first since Alex Yersak took the title in 2007! Kaleb Burch got his first sub-17 clocking with a strong 7th place finish, and Matt Decker had his best race yet to finish 14th! Rob Harper ran a very aggressive race and, although he struggled a little over the 2nd half of the race, he still came in with a big PR and his first sub-18 minute race! Phillip-Robert Cerria (AKA: PRC) was Cherokee's 5th man and he also had his best race of the season so far!
In the JV race, Freddy Rasmussen, Danny Mintzer and Mike Hare all ran their best races to date to finish 3rd, 4th and 5th in the senior competition. All three freshmen, Jose Fraile, Jordan Kittles and Matt Gross, ran sizable PR's with Jose earning Runner of the Meet honors when he dropped 4:22 under his previous 5K! WOW!
Details at: MileSplit/NJRunners.
On October 24, 2012, the Junior Varsity and Freshmen runners bussed over to Pennypacker Park in Haddonfield for the Haddonfield Open, a meet designed for runners who are unlikely to qualify on their teams for the SJ Sectional Championships. The course is flat and fast so many runners looked forward to the meet as an opportunity to set final PR's for the season. For Cherokee, that was the case but there was also something else: the seventh spot on the Varsity squad going to Sectionals was "up for grabs" and Dan Mintzer, Freddy Rasmussen and Mike Hare competed for the spot!
The first race settled the big question: Mintzer beat the other two by about 20 seconds and took the seventh slot on the Varsity team! All three finished under 19 for the first time this year so you know it was a competitive race! Other highlights included Anthony Marrazzo going under 20 for the first time; and Matt Gross dropping 50 seconds off his best time!
Congratulations to Dan Mintzer who was named Runner of the Meet!
Details at: MileSplit/NJRunners.
On October 26, 2012, the team traveled one last time this year to Gloucester County College for the Olympic Conference Championships. All of the team details have not been reported yet but one thing is clear: Senior Shawn Wilson had a great race, winning by 27 seconds, even though he was alone most of the time! His time of 15:25.4 set New Conference and Course Records! The later was previously held by Jimmy Daniels of Sterling, 15:38 at the Camden County Meet, 2012; and before that by Miles Schoedler of Ocean City, 15:40 at the SJ Shootout, 2010.
Famed sport psychologist, Dr Gio Viliante, well-known for his work with golfers such as Camilo Villegas, Davis Love III, Vijay Singh, and Matt Kucher, is working on the rest of the Varsity team, and Coach Shaklee, as they try to figure out why they didn't perform better in this event. More on that later . . ..
In the JV race, Freddy Rasmussen was the team's top finisher and PR'd on the course. Anthony Marrazzo and Zach LoPresti also PR'd on the course! In addition, all three freshmen -- Jordan Kittles, Jose Fraile and Matt Gross -- also set new course PR's by a sizable amount.
Detailed results at: MileSplit/NJRunners.
On November 3, 2012, Cherokee's Varsity traveled to the Haddonfield Relief Run, a last minute speed work exercise that was set-up at the last minute when Hurricane Sandy forced the postponment of Sectionals. Besides allowing athletes to compete on the track at 1600m, any money made at the meet went to hurricane relief.
There were five heats of boys races with Cherokee athletes running in heats 5, 7 and 8. In heat five, Justin DeTone and Phillip-Robert Cerria both ran strong races with PRC taking the lead on the 3rd lap only to have Justin go by him at the gun. Both runners closed well to finish 2nd and 3rd in the heat with PRC establishing a new PR! Heat seven included Rob Harper and Matt Decker. Rob ran well to come within two seconds of his track PR, while Matt struggled through the middle laps but closed well over the last 400.
In the seeded, eighth heat, Shawn Wilson and Kaleb Burch represented Cherokee. Shawn ran comfortably in the lead for 1100 meters with the field in tow before kicking away over the last 500 to win by over seven seconds! Kaleb closed well to finish 7th. The results were encouraging as the team prepares for the up-coming South Jersey Sectional Championships.
Details at: MileSplit/NJRunners.
