It's still unusually cool in South Jersey but the track season is firing-up with mid-season challenges and championships! The South Jersey Open and Relay Championships open the month of May, and then there is one of two Twilight Meets at Holmdel High School, a Dual Meet against Lenape High School (which by this time the team uses for training and sharpening), and the Cherokee Invitational! GO CHIEFS!
On May 4, 2017, select members of the team traveled to Delsea Regional High School for the South Jersey Open Invitational. The host organization, The South Jersey Track Coaches Association, established specific qualifying times and distances and Cherokee sent more than a dozen athletes to the meet. Others were held back for competition this weekend.
While many Old Timers say the weather is always especially bad at this meet -- last year, it was cold and rainy -- this year it was bad, but not especially so! Temperatures in the mid-50's by nightfall with a fairly strong wind . . . not great but not horrible!
Despite the weather, the Distance Squad produced some pretty good results! In the Freshman 1600m Run, the coach entered Chase Miller, Bobby Hackney, Ethan Wechsler and Mike Gavio, two of whom PR'd in the event! Two were a little banged-up going into the event and it showed! Chase managed to take 8th in 4:49.90 despite having a sore back, and Bobby struggled in his first race back from time off due to a hip problem. The other two, however, ran well! Ethan finished 10th with a 2 second PR in 4:50.77, while Mike placed 16th (3rd in his heat) with a 3 second PR at 5:02.47!
In the Varsity 1600m Run, Jack Shea looked good in only his 3rd race since cross country, knocking 3 seconds off his PR to place 2nd in 4:22.59! That time moved him to #8 on the All-Time Cherokee List. Behind him, Freshman, Chris Spisak, ran an outstanding race to place 12th overall and knock 2-1/2 seconds off of Nick Falk's Freshman School Record at 4:30.34, set at the 2014 Haddonfield Twilight Meet! Had Chris run the Freshman 1600m, he would have won by over 12 seconds! In addition, Brendan Falzone turned in his fastest 1600m of the year! Finally, in the 800m Dash, Cam Wilburn ran well, coming close to his personal best with a time of 2:04.52!
Among the Sprinters, Freshmen EJ Bard and Mohamed Fofanah made the most of their opportunity to get the first full-automatic times of their high school careers in the Freshman 100m Dash. Running into a pretty strong headwind down the home stretch, EJ clocked 11.90 for 4th place and Mohamed ran 12.48 for 20th! Freshman Tyler Jackson demolished his PR from the indoor season (56.84) in the Freshman 400m Dash. Tyler finished in 2nd place, which equaled the best finish of the night for our team. Mohamed Fofanah clocked 56.98 in his first time running the event. He finished 24th in the race.
Upperclassman Kevin Milligan-Tinker ran 51.86 for 20th place in the 400m Dash! . . . 51.86 and you get 20th place on a cold, windy night in South Jersey! Yikes! The 400m is loaded this year! That time was just off of his PR from this past indoor season and we expect Kevin's time to drop as the temperature warms!
Adonis Giovetis was Cherokee's only Throws qualifier and missed making the Javelin final by a mere 11"! Still pretty decent competing against the best throwers in South Jersey. His top throw of 145' 2" (9th place) was his best performance in a big meet and was just off of the PR he set (149' 1") in a dual meet two weeks ago! Freshman Darien Massimino put the 8-pound shot 31' 9.25" in the Freshman Shot Put and finished in 13th place.
Details at: NJ.MileSplit.
Pictures were tough throughout the evening and night! Here's some of what came out!
On May 6, 2017, the team split in two with Sprinters, Jumpers and Throwers going to the 50th Annual South Jersey Relays at Rancocas Valley High School and the Distance squad going to the Holmdel High School's 'Night of 3200's'.
The Throwers team had a pretty successful day! In the Javelin, Jared Selkow and Adonis Giovetis both threw PR's in the Division 2 Varsity Javelin Relay! Jared hit 139' 2" and Adonis reached 149" 1"! Their combined distance of 288' 3" was enough for the the win the Division and bring home the only gold medals from the meet!
In the JV Javelin, five of the eight guys broke their PR's! Kieran Kelly threw 116' 2" (old PR = 112' 5" ); Jack Vick threw 112' 0" (old PR = 103' 10"); Nick Villamil threw 99' 0" (old PR = 88' 3"), Collin Mahoney threw 89' 4" (old PR = 87' 1"); and Josh Morgan threw 70' 4" (old PR = 63' 0")!
Finally, in the Freshman Javelin Relay, Nolan Rivel (PR of 89' 2") and Nathan Chang (PR of 101' 9") threw a combined 190' 11" for 2nd place in the event!
In the Shot Put Relay, for the only time all season, Freshman boys are permitted to throw an 8-pound shot. Darien Massimino threw 30' 9" and Phil Quipot threw 30' 3.5" for a combined distance of 61' 0.5" in the Freshman Shot Put. Adonis Giovetis and Luch Pizarro were wrapping-up the Shot Put Relay as the meet was coming to a close. After a long and hectic afternoon, they were unable to summon their best performances. Adonis threw 36' 1" and Luch hit 35' 9". Their combined distance of 71' 10" had them finsih in 8th place in the Division.
In the JV Shot Put, Collin Mahoney threw a PR of 31' 8.5" which broke his outdoor PR of 30' 8" and his indoor PR of 31' 0.5"! Mike Nessler was just a few inches from his PR (32' 5.5") with his best throw of 31' 9". Josh Morgan found himself in the same boat with his throw of 25' 5.5" (his PR is 25' 8.5"). Kieran Kelly threw 28' 11" and Tom Deutsch threw 24' 8.75".
In the Division 2 Varsity Discus Relay, Adonis Giovetis threw 118' 11" to break his PR of 116' 5" and qualify in a second event at the Olympic Conference Championship! Kieran Kelly reached 113' 11". Their combined distance of 231' 10" earned them 8th place.
In the JV Discus, Tom Deutsch threw 114' 10" to add 5 inches to his PR (114' 5" at the Bridgeton Relays)! Mike Nessler threw 98' 10". Ahmad Miller threw 90' 10" to break his PR of 82' 6" (from our dual meet versus Washington Township). Josh Morgan threw 72' 2" to break his old PR of 68' 3" (from our dual meet versus Eastern); and Jared Selkow threw 71' 3".
With all JV athletes combined into one (no separation by division), none of our JV relays threw far enough to medal, but the PR haul was enough for our throwers to leave the meet with their heads held high!
The Hurdlers and Jumpers had several nice performances! In the 400IH, Ryan Belz, Tyler Ortiz and Naledge Brown ran right around their PR's to place 4th in the Large School Division! In the 110m Shuttle Hurdles, Anthony Natale, Tra Cabbagestalk, Ryan Belz and Brandon Fisher ran their fastest time of the year finishing 6th! Finally, in the Long Jump, Ryan Bishop jumped 32' 2" for a PR!
The Sprinters also stepped-up in several relays to impress! Among the Freshmen efforts, the 4 X 100m Relay of Mohammed Fofanah, Christian Mathis, Angelo Calderon and Hazar Atay clocked 47.64 and took 2nd in Division II and 3rd overall; and the same guys raced the 4 X 200m Relay in 1:41.71, again taking 2nd in the Division and 3rd overall!
In the JV events, the 4 X 400m Relay of Chris Cato, Aatish Gupta, Jamie Voynow and Anton Specht clocked 3:50.61 and took 2nd place; and in the 4 X 200m Relay, Tae Kim joined Voynow, Specht and Gupta to clock 1:44.67 and take 7th place. Aatish had the fastest split: 25.1!
The Varsity Sprinters had some nice races and one crazy situation through the afternoon! The "crazy" first: in the Super Sprint Medley Relay, Terrance Graves and EJ Bard led off with 100's, Matt Powell ran the 200m, and CJ Lee closed with the 400m (51.7) to bring the team to a 1:39.2. However, at the first exchange, another team cut across lanes, interfering with and slowing down Terrance! In turn, this caused EJ to get the baton out of the zone. For this, Cherokee was DQ'd. Yeah, really . . . and apparently the offending team was not!
Other Varsity races included the 4 X 100m Relay of Tray Cabbagestalk, EJ Bard, Terrance Graves and Will Delendik who ran 44.33 for a 2nd place finish; the Sprint Medley Relay of Lee, Delendik, Powell and Kevin Milligan-Tinker who ran 3:44.29 for 2nd place; and the 4 X 400m Relay of Graves, Powell, Lee and Naledge Brown who ran 3:40.25 for a 2nd place finish!
Details from the Relays at: NJ.MileSplit.
Our photographer shot the early relays and the Long Jump before heading up to Holmdel for their "Night of 3200's":
On May 6, 2017, while the rest of the team competed at the South Jersey Relays, the Distance squad traveled to Holmdel High School's Twilight Series: "Night of 3200's" where sixteen of twenty-two established new Personal Records! Senior Nick Falk, was the most impressive of them all! In the seeded race, Nick placed 4th in 9:15.08 and became the 3rd fastest 3200m runner in Cherokee history behind legends Marc Pelerin (2002) and Shawn Wilson (2013)!
Freshman, Chris Spisak, made it 2-for-2 as he broke the School Freshman Record in the 3200m after breaking the School Freshman Record in the 1600m on Thursday night at the SJ Invitational! Chris' time of 9:40.02 knocked more than eight seconds off of the old record set by Nick Falk in 2014.
In addition, Sophomore David Jackson moved closer to breaking the 10-minute barrier in the 3200m with his 2nd place finish in his heat in 10:02.36! Personal Records were also set by Jon Conn, Matt Smith, Mike Iannotta, Mike Gavio, Ethan Wechsler, Nik Kadirisani, Pat Mahoney, Matt Zeitz, George Villanueva, Matt Campbell, Chris Monteleone, Aathi Anandan and Ben Rosenberg.
Details on Holmdel's "Night of 3200's" at: NJ.MileSplit.
Obviously, the person who thought "night racing is really cool" wasn't a photographer!
On May 9, 2017, the Chiefs hosted their third Dual Meet of the season with Lenape High School. Having lost the first of the four scheduled dual meets and the chance to win the Division title, Cherokee is looking forward to the Conference Championship and more important state meets and using this and the remaining dual meet against Cherry Hill East for training. Even so, there were some very impressive performances!
The Hurdlers had a nice day! In the 400IH, Naledge Brown clocked a 2-second PR to finish 2nd overall, and Ryan Belz took 3rd; and in the 110HH, Anthony Natale ran his second fastest time of the year to finish 2nd, and Brandon Fisher chipped-in his own 1-second PR as well!
The Jumpers looked good as well! In the High Jump, Frosh Joey Carroll tied his PR at 5' 6" and Sophomore Andrew Elsey cleared a new PR of 6', which made Andrew the first 6' jumper for Cherokee since 2010! Oh, and he won too! In the Long Jump, Nkenna Opara jumped 19' 3-3/4" for a PR and 1st place! Andrew Elsey, Kenny Sprankle and Dan Schwartz also kicked-in PR's of their own! In the Triple Jump, Nkenna and Tra Cabbagestalk went 1-2 (Nkenna is undefeated in the conference right now) and Ryan Bishop jumped a PR too! Finally, in the Pole Vault, both Kenny Sprankle (9' 6") and Ryan Bishop (9') set new PR's!
In the Throwing events, things got started with the Javelin. Adonis Giovetis had the final throw of the day and managed to win the event with his toss of 144' 6". Jared Selkow's best throw of 129' 1" was good enough for 3rd place. Josh Morgan threw a PR of 78' 10" as did Darien Massimino with his effort of 85' 5"! In the Discus, Adonis was our lone point-scorer. His best throw of the day of 117' 1" was good enough for second place. Michael Nessler threw the only PR of the day in the discus with his best attempt of 108' 0"! In the Shot Put, Adonis was able to score our only points in the event with his throw of 39' 4.5" which earned him 3rd place! Collin Mahoney pulled off the rare "trifecta" of breaking his PR on each successive throw. His series was as follows: 32' 1", 32' 3.25", and 32' 11.25". Phil Quipot set a new lifetime best by throwing 27' 4.75". Ahmad Miller also set a new standard for himself by reaching 33' 11"!
The Distance guys had some notible performances too! In the 1600m, Cam Wilburn ran a nice race to take the win, leading from the 400m. Behind him, both David Jackson and Mike Iannotta set PR's to finish 3rd and 4th. In the 800m, Freshmen, Ty Jackson and Chris Spisak both ran outstanding races to take 2nd and 3rd at 2:03.8 and 2:04.1! Other PR's were set by Jack Shea, Matt Smith, Mike Gavio, Pat Mahoney, George Villanueva, Matt Campbell and Aathi Anandan. Finally, in the 3200m, Jake Hyzy ran a strong race and kicked well down the homestretch to finish 3rd with a 10-second PR. Mike Morashi ran well to knock five seconds off of his previous best!
No news on the Sprint guys but their pictures look good! ;< )
On May 15, 2017, Cherokee hosted the 18th Annual Cherokee Track and Field Invitational and, though sunny and comfortably warm, the wind blew strongly throughout the meet! Years ago, this coaching staff recognized a need for novices in the South Jersey area to have some kind of formal end to their seasons, beyond their last dual meet, and this meet was introduced. Today, there are several similar meets available to coaches and athletes but Cherokee's is clearly the best! Who else provides FAT results for everyone, and allows several heats to race on the same track at the same time!?
The Distance coach has his athletes racing different events on different days and, here in the 1600m Run, despite the strong winds, Freshman Ethan Wechsler managed to knock 3 1/2 seconds off of his previous best time to place 4th! Jake Hyzy dipped under 5:00 for the first time; and Mike Gavio, George Villanueva and Matt Campbell all set new personal records! In the 800m Dash, Mike Iannotta dropped his PR by 2 seconds with a strong run to place 3rd; and Mike Moraschi, Nik Kadirisani and Chris Monteleone all set their own PR's!
More Cherokee details soon but here are the meet results: NJ.MileSplit
Picture-taking was brutal because of the bright, setting sun but here are some taken on the track through the 800m race:
