This meet on October 26th turned into one of the most excitng in county history as Keith Kreiger and Cinnaminson's Jon Anderson battled for 1st place, while their teams did the same. Before this race, Kreiger had run 16:15 at the Shore Invitational while Anderson ran 16:14.5 on the same day. And Cinnaminson was ranked # 2 in SJ by the Philadelphia Inquirer while Cherokee was ranked # 4. In the end, Krieger won the battle easily (running 15:43, the second fastest time in course history, and 13 seconds ahead of Anderson) but the team title was much closer. Indeed, the final score was Cherokee - 39; Cinnaminson - 41! In the JV race, the Chiefs easily outpaced their opponents, putting 5 runners (Bredeck, McFadden, Cuneo, Nelson and Price) in the first 6 places.
Instead of running his Varsity squad in this meet on November 1st, Coach Shaklee continued to train them for the up-coming State meets. He entered depleted "Varsity" and JV squads, and focused his teams on running their best times of the season on the Gloucester County course. His teams took the expected beating (the "Varsity" ended in 6th place) but all of the runners dropped at least 30 seconds (and several as much as 2 minutes) off their previous "bests" on the course. {The following pictures are not from the Conference meet: most are from one meet or another at Delsea.)
The SJ Sectionals were held on November 9th on the unimaginative and flat course of Delsea High School; and after five years of taking either 1st or 2nd in the SJ Group IV Sectionals, Cherokee was looking for a repeat . . . this time back in 1st place. However, Toms River North ruined that idea but not because Cherokee's runners sat back and let them. In a strongly fought battle, Cherokee's top runner, Keith Krieger, was forced to take second behind North's Pete Hess. Krieger led through most of the race but he was overcome in the last 250 meters: Hess finished in a course record 15:18, closely followed by Krieger in 15:22. The rest of the team followed in under 2 minutes and gave Cherokee the needed points to take second behind an excellent Toms River North team.
