GO CHEROKEE! GO CHIEFS!
In 1948, the Chicago Daily Tribune ran a huge, front-page headline "Dewey Defeats Truman." Unfortunately for them, they were wrong because Truman had won! Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer made another egregious error when they published the following boxscore (Darn, this was pretty funny until we realized they posted the correct American Division results -- East did beat Cherokee in the division -- and just didn't post the Conference results):
Another team-related story came to us anonymously and we are publishing it to applaud the efforts of our managers! Everyone knows the team's managers are using their connection with Cross Country to prepare themselves for the upcoming Winter and Spring Track seasons. They've established an almost brutal regime to improve their conditioning and speed. This picture was taken secretly at Cherokee's Track Stadium and we're told it says everything about their preparation! GO DAULTON! GO AL! GO ROBBIE!
Wait . . . let's get to the meet!
On October 23, 2015, an enlarged Varsity team of twelve competed in the highly-competitive Olympic Conference Championships at Rowan College at Gloucester County. Everyone knew Cherry Hill East was the odds-on favorite to win the meet but no one ran for second place! Usually a team that expected to be beaten in a race allows the favorites to move on while they protect their second place position but that's not how Cherokee "played the game!" Indeed, the runners were not intimidated and they competed as aggressively as they did all year! What resulted was a classic, a stunning array of PR's, and a bunch of officials scrambling for the rule book!
The 14-team race was all Cherokee and Cherry Hill East! At the end, Cherokee went 2-4-6-12-20 and East went 1-7-9-10-17! Yikes! It was a tie and, according to the rules, the 6th man breaks the tie! Cherokee's 6th man was 21st and East's 6th man was 22nd! Cherokee won by one point in a tie-breaker! A-mazing!
For Cherokee there were many "a-mazing" performances, not the least of which was Jack Shea's second-place finish! His race was terrific and clearly the best of the year for the entire team! To put it in perspective, his time, a 30+ second PR, was close to what Shawn Wilson ran in 2012: the year Shawn won the Group IV State Championship and qualified for the National Footlocker Meet! Close behind in 4th, Nick Falk ran another PR of more than 10 seconds, and just behind him in 6th place, Justin Kelly clocked his own PR and capped his race by passing East's second man in the last 100m with a great kick! That put three Cherokee runners in front of East's 2nd man!
East put three guys in front of Cherokee's 4th man but Brandon Marks -- the coach called him "Mr Dependable" -- had another excellent race, set another 15-second PR and showed he was the most improved runner in the Conference from last year to this! Brandon's 12th place finish was closely followed by Mike Zurzolo in 20th to finish the scoring for the team! Well . . . usually, but this time East finished with the same 44 points and the scoring went to the finish of the 6th men on each team!
The race came down to Senior Steve Gravlin who, at 200m from the finish, was running neck-and-neck with an East runner! He would break the tie, clock a 25-second PR and finish 21st, one place in front of his opponent! Cherokee wins!
For the record, there are three divisions in the Olympic Conference. Counting only those runners in the 5-team American Division, Cherokee lost the division race by one point, 34 - 35, with East taking 1-7-9-10-17 and Cherokee taking 2-4-6-12-20. Counting all the runners, Cherokee won the Olympic Conference race on a tie-breaker! Not a bad day's work!
The coaches had huge problems selecting the Runner of the Meet! At least four over-the-top performances among the Cherokee scorers and several great performances by those who did not actually score in the meet! But the coaches will take that "problem" any day and, this time, they selected Steve Gravlin Everyone talks about how important the 5th man is in a Cross Country race but this time it was the 6th man who made all the difference at the end of the race! GO STEVE!
Not to be lost in all of this, are the performances of others in the race! Cam Wilburn, David Jackson, Mike Iannotta, Jon Conn and Kevin Bookwalter all PR'd! To put that in perspective, last year, Mike Zurzolo was Cherokee's 4th man at 17:27, Steve Gravlin 5th at 17:39, Justin Kelly 6th at 17:48, and Brandon Marks 7th at 18:07. Yesterday, Cam ran 17:28, David, 17:29; and Mike, 17:42! What are they serving in Cherokee's cafeteria?!
Jim Lambert of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com wrote the following about the meet: Lambert.
Reuben Frank reported that this was the first team victory at Conference for Cherokee since 2011. Check his blog entry titled, "Gravlin gives Cherokee Olympic Conference title on 6th-man tiebreaker!" SJ Track Blog. Back-up copy here.
Details at: NJ. MileSplit.
Jon Falk sent some pictures from the meet. Here are a few:
State rankings are valid only until you stand on the next starting line . . . and then you have to prove yourselves all over again! This week, the incredibly bright group voting for New Jersey MileSplit gave Cherokee enough big-time votes to rocket them up to # 4 in the state! That's cool but let's not read too much into it! See the chart and some comments: NJ.MileSplit.
On October 29, 2015, the JV and Freshmen team members traveled to Pennypacker Park for the Haddonfield Sub-Varsity Invitational, a meet that focuses on Junior Varsity and Freshmen Cross Country runners. In the past, this was the final race offered to JV and Freshmen runners before the Sectional Championships when the Varsity teams took to the field. That's not so now but the course at Pennypacker Park is the flatest in South Jersey and many athletes still show-up planning to set a final PR for their seasons. In addition, for years Cherokee coaches have sponsored an Intra-Team competition for supreme bragging rights!
For more than ten years, the Intra-team race has been contested and, this year, the score at race time stood: Coach Shaklee, 9 wins; former Coach Callinan, 2 wins, and in the fluke year of 2007 (forgotten by all except the most diehard) when Coach Thompson won! Early this week, Coaches Shaklee and Thompson selected runners one after the other and built their teams. No medals or trophies are awarded but each coach and team values the bragging rights that go to the winners!
This year, the races were hard-fought but the score was so close it was difficult to determine. At the time of this writing, the published results were unavailable but "a picture is worth a thousand words!" With great confidence, Coach Thompson declared victory! All hail Coach Thompson and his band of mighty runners!
9:00 PM. But wait! Four hours since race time and word is filtering through the Internet that Coach Thompson's swaggering may have been misplaced . . . and our faith in him shattered! At this point, "Cherokee Cross Country and Track and Field" (ccctf.com) will not publish the results until they are confirmed by state officials . . . or Coach Shaklee, who would never "fudge the results" as Physics teachers have been known to do!
Midnight. The scores pour in and the news is not good for Coach Thompson's team! Despite valient efforts by his runners and the overconfident bluster of their young coach, Coach Shaklee's team scored a decisive victory: Shak Attack - 48 . . . Thompson's Toads - 57!
Details of the victory are as follows: Cam Wilburn (S) set a new PR and continued to rule as Cherokee's 8th man! Of course, he had to work down the last straight to hold off determined Frosh, David Jackson (T), who also PR'd and was only a second behind Wilburn! Dan Schwartz (T) made a huge jump, dropping almost 30 seconds and going under 18 for the first time . . . well under! Mike Iannotta (S) hung tough despite a knee problem that has recently plagued him to keep Coach Shaklee's squad in the race. Jon Conn (T) ran another strong race, as did Kevin Bookwalter (S) so that after three runners each, Coach Thompson's team had a slim 1 point lead. Next across the line in the A race was Matt Morgan (T) with a new PR followed by Matt Powell (S) with a season-best time. Mike Algarra (T) and Taha Rana (T), with a new PR, were the next to finish in the A race giving Thompson a temporary lead and the dream of victory! However, Shak Attack came back strong in the Frosh race and the JV B race! Mike Moraschi and Tyler Ortiz both set huge PR's finishing 2nd and 3rd in the Frosh race, running faster than Coach Thompson's 4th runner from the A race and giving the Shak Attack a lead they would not relinquish! To insure the victory, Coach Shaklee's team got huge performances from Pat Mahoney (S) - 30+ second PR - and Chris Monteleone (S) - dropping under 20 for the first time - in the JV B race. Mahoney finished 2nd in that race with Monteleone in 6th, one place behind Matt Zeitz (T) who finished with a big PR of his own! Shane Gordon (T) and George Villanueva (S) also had very big PR performances!
All in all, a very good day for Cherokee's runners, whether they were Shak Attack or Thompson's Toads! And more important, it served as yet another lesson for young Coach Thompson as he remains at ONE victory against Coach Shaklee's TEN! GO CHEROKEE! GO SHAK ATTACK! GO SHAKLEE!
Once again faced with a large number of possible choices, the coaches selected Dan Schwartz as the Runner of the Meet! It was Dan's first PR since the Battle at Ocean County Park and it was a big one: he dropped 27 secs from his previous best to get 7th in the A race! GO DAN!
Additional details at: NJ.MileSplit.
On November 3, 2015, Cherokee traveled to Rowan College at GC, to pit their Junior Varsity runners against all others at the Olympic Conference JV Championships! The day started badly for Cherokee as two of their top performers -- Cam Wilburn and Mike Iannotta -- were sidlined by injuries. Cam rolled his ankle while cooling-down after the Haddonfield race and Mike has been struggling with an overuse knee problem for weeks. Missing two of their top three definitely hurt Cherokee's chances to win the championship and allowed Cherry Hill East to dominate the unofficial team competition: 23 - 51. For grins, with Cam and Mike racing, Cherokee would have won 23 - 32 or, worst case, 24 - 31!
That said, the most impressive race of the day was turned in by previous Runner of the Meet, Jon Cann, who was determined to break 18 minutes, even if the day was exceptionally warm for early November! Cann satyed focused and finished fast to just get under his goal: 17:59.8! (In the old days, critics might have argued that this was the "slow watch" of a sympathetic coach but, in the days of Fully Automatic Timing, the times are legit!) In addition, Kevin Bookwalter and Matt Morgan both ran well (as they have all season) to come close to their personal best times. Most of the other Cherokee runners were well off on a day that clearly was too warm for great times, which makes the good performances all the more impressive!
Not to be lost in all of this, the coaches awarded Runner of the Meet recognition to Taha Rana who, despite the heat, improved his PR by 20 seconds and finished as Cherokee's 7th man! GO TAHA!
Details at: NJ.MileSplit.
The pictures are blue! Yes, blue is a nice color, a calming color, but it's not so good when all the pictures are tinged blue. The photographer claims he was replicating the techniques used by Pablo Picasso during his "Blue Period" but, in truth, it was caused by mis-setting the White Balance on his camera. Besides the blue tint, the setting sun damaged the quality of the pictures on this bright and sunny day. PhotoShopping helped but only a little. A Yellow card has been issued with the threat of a Red card in the future!
On a rainy November 7, 2015, Cherokee's Varsity raced for "the bigs" at the South Jersey Group IV Sectionals. They planned to win the event and advance to the State Group IV Championships at Holmdel but they didn't have their best day.
Despite racing hard throughout the race, they failed to repeat their victory over their main rival, Cherry Hill East (the defending state champions), but they were still able to take 2nd ahead of the 16 other teams in the race! The five top teams in the race -- East, Cherokee, Jackson, Southern and Kingsway -- will join the other 15 Group IV Sectional qualifiers from around the state in the final race for the State Group IV (team) Championship!
Apparently, our guys aren't "mudders" and the rain didn't help their performances. Still, Jack Shea and Nick Falk ran solid races to give Cherokee a good start. In addition, Justin Kelly and Brandon Marks also ran well, and Brendan Falzone set a new 5K PR!
The guys know they can run better -- plug in their times from the SJ Open (same course a month ago) and Cherokee wins Sectionals -- and they'll need to in order to advance out of a very deep State Group IV field and make it to the Meet of Champions! GO CHEROKEE!
The coaches selected Brendan Falzone as the Runner of the Meet in recognition of his PR performance at the meet! GO BRENDAN!
Details at NJ.MileSplit
On a cool and windy November 14, 2015, Cherokee's Varsity showed-up big-time at the New Jersey Group IV State Championships! Yeah, the guys aren't well-oiled machines where everyone runs exactly as programmed but, on great teams when one falters, the others step up and fill the gap! Something like that happened at Groups! Overall, it wasn't the team's best race but there were some very impressive individual performances: the team finished 3rd and qualified for the State Meet of Champions as a team for the first time since 2008 when Cherokee finished 2nd in the Group IV State Championships and placed 10th at the Meet of Champions!
On the individual performances, Jack Shea had an outstanding run as he moved up from around 15th at the mile to take 4th with the 7th fastest time of the day out of all the races! In addition, Jack's time of 16:03 moved him up to number 4 on the All-Time Cherokee List at Holmdel, behind Cherokee greats Shawn Wilson, 15:40 (2012 State Champ and Footlocker Finalist), Marc Pelerin, 15:44 (2001 Meet of Champions winner and Footlocker Finalist) and Keith Krieger, 15:46 (2002 Meet of Champions runner-up)! In addition, Justin Kelly, despite being sick, ran a very strong race and dropped 20 seconds off of his previous Holmdel PR with a 16:45 finish, making him the 18th fastest Cherokee runner ever on the course! Senior Captain, Mike Zurzolo came back big from a disappointing Sectional outing, to run his best race of the year and beat his previous best Holmdel time by 30 seconds, while Brandon Marks continued his great season with yet another strong race, dropping 11 seconds from his previous Holmdel PR! Nick Falk was a little under the weather and also had some difficulty with a hip issue that has been with him all season but he still hung in there to take the important 5th scoring position on the team!
Looking ahead, if Nick is feeling better next week, he'll run with Jack and give Cherokee a powerful 1-2 punch in the Meet of Champions. Those two, backed up by Justin, Mike, Brandon, and perhaps Brendan Falzone and Steve Gravlin, will be a lot for the other teams to deal with! The goal, then. for the Meet of Champions is to have the best team race of the year and to make the Awards Podium as one of the top 6 teams in the state! GO CHEROKEE!
The coaches selected Mike Zurzolo as the Runner of the Meet! He had one of those "yikes!" meets where he bounced back from a bad race at Sectionals with the best cross country race of his career TO DATE! GO MIKE! . . . GO AGAIN AT MOC!
Further details at: NJ.MileSplit
The pictures ain't so hot! Tough lighting with the bright sun going down.
