After an unusual Winter Season marked by numerous COVID-related disruptions, the Spring Season is upon us! It, too, has had an unusual beginning with the extension of the Indoor season but Spring Track practice officially began in April, the first Scrimmage is scheduled for April 14th, and the full season begins soon after that! GO CHEROKEE!
Two long-time coaches remain on the team. Coach Shaklee, competed in Cross Country and Track at Cherry Hill High School East -- his record-setting time in the 2000 YARD run remains on the school's "Wall of Fame!" -- and at Drexel University. After graduating with degrees in Business Administration and Psychology, he began teaching and coaching at his high school alma mater, then at Shawnee High School, and finally, in 1992, he began his tenure at Cherokee, becoming a member of the Counseling Department and the Head Coach of Cross Country and Assistant Coach (distance) for Winter/Indoor and Spring Track! Several years later, he became the Head Coach of all three seasons and, today, retired from Counseling, he remains the Head Coach of Cross Country, volunteer Assistant Coach during the Winter/Indoor Season, and Assistant Coach (distance) in the Spring.
Our second "long-time" coach is Coach Thompson. He graduated from Moorestown High School where he competed in Cross Country, Wrestling and Baseball; and then graduated from Grove City College with a degree in Mathematics and Physics. He began teaching in the Science Department at Cherokee in 2006 and began coaching the following year. He insists that he, as a natural leader, led the Cross Country team to the State Group IV title that first year but that remains in dispute! Today, he is the Assistant Coach of Cross Country and Assistant Coach (Sprints/Jumps) of Spring Track.
This year, two new coaches joined the team. Coach Hoffman was named the Head Coach and he'll focus on the team's Throwers. Coach Hoffman graduated from Burlington Township High School where he competed in both Football and Track. In football, he was named to the All-South Jersey team as a Defensive End; and, in Track, he took 7th in the Discus at the Meet of Champions! While earning his degree in Health and Physical Education at Rowan University, he played Football and was named to the "2nd Team, All-American" and the NJAC Defensive Player of the Year! After Rowan, he joined the Health and Physical Education Department at Rancocas Valley Regional High School and began coaching both Football and Track. He is especially proud of RV's Group Championship in Track in 2011. In addition, he coached several athletes who, over the years, won the Group State Championships, and, in particular, of Nick Marabelli, who won the State Meet of Champions and set the State Record in the Javelin! He hopes to bring the same level of accomplishment to Cherokee Track and Field!
Another new addition to the team (but not to Cherokee) is Coach Viscidy. He graduated from Cherokee High School in 2012 after four years as a highly-successful Track athlete -- check back on this site in those early years for detailed information on his impressive High School years! Coach Viscidy graduated from Montclair State University with a degree in Health and Physical Education and, in the Spring of 2019, he began his coaching career at our sister-school, Lenape. Then in Fall of 2020, returned to his alma mater as a teacher in the Health and Physical Education Department. He began as an Assistant Coach in the Girls Track program this past Winter/Indoor season and will serve as the Boys Assistant Coach (Sprints/Jumps) in Spring Track.
The first practice for the Spring Season was weeks ago and the first competition is next Wednesday! If you haven't done so already, you need to set some goals!
Setting goals is a big deal both in sports and life in general but constant re-evaluation is important in this process. Goals are not set in stone, they're not meant to weigh you down, they're to give you something to work for . . . and they can change!
Make challenging goals that match your abilities . . . something specific and measurable . . . some positive accomplishment . . . add a timeline.
Here ya go: focus on process and performance, not specific outcomes! A beginning Shot Putter might say, "For the entire season, I'm going to improve my general conditioning by eating healthier foods (no junk foods!), be the first in line for every exercise the coach sets-up, and improve my puts up to 2 feet by Sectionals." A miler might say, "For the next three weeks, in addition to afternoon practices, I'm going to do three 30-min stationary bike sessions a week in the morning with the goal of improving my overall condition and, combined with my regular team practices, dropping my race times as much as 10 seconds by the Conference Championships." Specific action? Goal and benefits quantifiable? Attainable? Challenging but doable? Check, check, check, check!
Bottom line: you make a serious effort, you know where you're going, but you can still re-evaluate your goal and change it!
On April 14, 2021, the team traveled to Timber Creek High School for the Scrimmage with Timber Creek, Haddon Heights and Cherokee. The weather was definitely Spring-like, with cool temperatures and intermittent showers but many of Cherokee's athletes did well!
Head Coach Hoffman, working with the Throwers, made the following remarks:
"On Wednesday's scrimmage against Timber Creek, there were PR's all over the place! This may have something to do with having all new throwers, but hey, a PR is a PR!
"Some Shot Put highlights included Junior Adam Lopez's outdoor PR of 34' 1.5" which earned him second place! Senior Steve Mondile also threw over 30' with a throw of 31' 8"!
"Cherokee did not score in the Discus but these guys are brand new to this type of throw and getting better every day! DJ Mondile and his brother Steve Mondile are consistently throwing in the 100's and are poised to make a splash in an upcoming meet!
"Javelin featured a 3rd place finish for Senior Aidan King with a throw of 113' 7". When Aidan was a sophomore, he threw a PR of 122' 7" and he is looking to regain his form. He has shown the capability of throwing in the 140's and we expect big things!"
On the Distance side of things, Ass't Coach Shaklee sent the following comments:
"The distance squad had some good results at the Timber Creek/Haddon Heights Scrimmage!
"The 1600 started things off . . . four Cherokee runners entered, four PR's! Okay, three of the four guys were running their first high school 1600's but still . . ..
"Conor Jacob, coming off of swim season with only a week and half of running behind him, went out aggressively and continued to build his lead. He clocked 4:43 and won by a large margin! Bradley Popler finished 2nd and knocked about 5 seconds off of his previous best! Ben Hackney and Joe Hough (who also was coming off of swim season) placed 3rd and 5th respectively with good performances for their first 1600's as Cherokee runners!
"The 800 had ten Cherokee runners entered, seven from the distance squad and three from the 'long-sprinter group.' Haddon Heights had a 2:01 man in the race so our top guys needed to race well. After a slow first 200, Brett Shea had had enough, took the lead and upped the pace, negative splitting a 2:00.2 for the win! Behind him, freshman, Nick Kuenkel, passed the Heights runner in the homestretch to finish 2nd in 2:01.7, an outstanding freshman time especially for the first meet! Alum Tyler Jackson's freshman school record of 2:00.82 appears to be in jeopardy! There were five other PR's set, although three of those runners - Steven Trombetta, Nate Meyers and Jack Delaney - were all running their first high school 800's. However, Bobby Poplau in 10th and Danny Hassall in 16th established new PR's by 3 and 4 seconds respectively!
"The final event, the 4 X 400 Meter Relay, saw seven PR's, but, once again, five of them were athletes running the event for the first time. The two actual PR's were set by freshmen, Nick Kuenkel and Bobby Poplau, capping off an excellent meet for both of them!
"Next up, on Wednesday, we face Eastern High School in our first Conference Meet and, two days later on Friday, we have the Cherokee Night of 3200's."
On the Sprint side of things, Ass't Coach Thompson sent the following remarks:
"It was a cold and wet day, not ideal for the shorter races, and the Sprint Squad was short-handed, but the athletes who raced still competed well and had quite a few PR's in the process! Senior Chima Opara led the way for the Chiefs in the 100m in 11.4, a significant PR, with newcomer Junior Marc DePhillips clocking 12.2, a nice first-time PR for him! Junior Jayden Hewlett looked good running his first-ever 400m, going sub-60 while clocking a 59.9, another nice first-time PR! Seniors Kevin Hess and Lucas Hatch were the top 400m finishers on the team crossing the line in 53.5 and 54.8, respectively! Chima and DePhillips were again the Chiefs' top finishers in the 200m, with Chima clocking another PR in 23.5 and DePhillips, a first-time PR in 24.9! Following them, Juniors Wilson Leung, Evan Pawlik, Josh Pawlik and Freshman Carter Rutter all ran PR's in the 200m!
"The Sprint team looks forward to its first dual meet on Wednesday, where it hope to have the full squad competing!"
No details are available on NJ.MileSplit.
Rough day for our photographer at the meet. Dark, misty/rainy conditions practically guaranteed sub-par performance! (For the record, athletes can never use this excuse . . . ever!) And, yes, he knows, the Throwers are part of the team but they were way-far away from the finish line! Next time, at home! Here are a few pictures selected at random just for grins!
All of the Cherokee pictures are now available through the District's Google Drive Account! Check them out at: TC Scrimmage at Google.
On April 22, 2021, the team welcomed Eastern Regional High School for the first Dual Meet of the season! It had been postponed from the day before because thundershowers threatened but today was, as they say, still less than perfect: the temperature was around 50 degrees and the wind gusted up to 20 MPH! Add to that, once again, the dome mechanism failed to operate -- that's the story we tell the Freshmen -- so the meet was held under these conditions! All of that said, it was a successful first Spring competition for the team!
Assistant Coach Shaklee got up early to report on his distance Squad's performance at the meet!
"With the Cherokee Night of 3200's scheduled for Friday (the first big test for the distance squad), the postponement of the Eastern Dual Meet was a problem. It meant that some of our key runners would have to race in Thursday's Dual and have just twenty hours to recover for the Night of 3200's. With that in mind, we went with a skeleton crew with instructions to do just enough to secure the necessary points. Mission accomplished!
"In the 1600, Brett Shea, Patrick Ditmars and Danny Boria (who had only come onboard from Wrestling five days earlier) got things started. The strong winds required a strategy of patience . . . staying tucked in with the Eastern runners and doing as little work as possible for as long as possible. The first three laps were a jog . . . followed by a fast 400 which resulted in Brett and Patrick taking 1-2 and Danny just missing the 3rd spot! Eight of nine possible points to Cherokee!
"In the 800, We entered only two runners, Nick Kuenkel and Tommy Bromley. It was enough to, once again, come away with eight of the nine possible points as they finished 1st and 2nd with strong kicks!
"The 3200 saw three Cherokee runners take the line - Ben Hackney, Bradley Popler and Andrew Free. In a strangely run tactical race, the three Cherokee runners managed to take the first three spots and garner all nine possible points!
"The overall result was that the distance team contributed 25 points to the overall team score for Cherokee and only gave two points to Eastern! With that, and some nice performances in the other event areas, Cherokee was able to win its first dual meet of the season, 79-56! The odd score was the result of two events which did not have three scorers: the Pole Vault in which Zach Palfy was the only athlete to clear a height (setting a new PR of 11' 6" in the process!), and the High Jump in which there was no 3rd place finisher. A good start to the Dual Season for the team! Next up - Washington Township - next Thursday. But, first . . . the Cherokee Night of 3200's and the Cherokee Pow Wow Meet #1 this weekend!"
Head Coach Hoffman offered the following remarks:
"It was the first meaningful track meet in two years and, despite the cold, rain and wind, the team did well, scoring 79 - 56 to win!"
"We had some impressive performances by our upperclassmen Throwers, Sprinters and Jumpers who hadn't competed in Spring Track competition for over a year! Senior Chris Brandreth started us off well with a 1st in the 400m Intermediate Hurdles, followed by Junior Wilson Leung in second! Junior Kevin Hess earned a 1st in the 400m Dash, followed by fellow Juniors Tony Campbell and Lucas Hatch in 2nd and 3rd; and in both the 100m and 200m Dashs, Junior Chima Opara finished 2nd against Eastern's strong short-sprint team!
"In the Throws, Junior DJ Mondile took 1st in both the Shot Put and Discus, followed by Senior Adam Lopez with a 2nd in the Shot! Also important was the Sweep in the Discus by DJ Mondile, his brother Senior Stephen Mondile and Adam Lopez Finally, in the Javelin, Seniors Aidan King and Steve Mondile took 2nd and 3rd and added more points to the final tally!
"In the Jumps, Senior Zach Palfy finished strong for us, especially in the Vault on a windy day, with a 1st in Pole Vault and 2nd in the Triple Jump (with Chris Brandreth picking up the 3rd)!
"Overall, along with the major contributions of the Distance Squad, we had a well-rounded scoring meet that allowed us to forego the 4 X 400 and High Jump, and avoid injuries in the poor weather. The Throwers earned 21 out of the 27 available points, and the Sprinter/Jumpers tallied a decent 46 out of the 89 contested, as they look to keep their momentum going into Washington Township meet this week!"
Cherokee's meet pictures are available at: Eastern Dual Meet.
General details at: NJ.MileSplit.
On April 22, 2021, the team welcomed the world to their Night of 3200's and it was the best distance night of this early season!
Assistant Coach Shaklee the Meet Director and Chief Greeter, reported early on his team's performance!
"Overall, the Cherokee Night of 3200's produced some great racing and, while the Cherokee team had a mix of great, good, okay and not so good performances (insert glum face here!), overall things went well for the team! Fifteen of sixteen runners came away with new Personal Records, although eight were running the first 3200 of their school career! Still, there were many impressive performances!
"The highlights included:
"In Heat 9, Jameson Crozier had his best performance of the year to place 5th in his race with a sizable PR!
"In Heat 10, Aiden Dickinson ran very aggressively, taking the lead from the start and holding it to the finish while knocking 10 seconds off of his previous best!
"In Heat 11, Bradley Popler, Ben Hackney and Andrew Free ran focused, tough races and all came away with new PR's, despite having raced in the Eastern Dual Meet the day before!
"Heat 16 provided the most team excitement with Patrick Ditmars, Nick Kuenkel and Brett Shea all in the race!
"Patrick had a very nice race! He was disappointed with his finish but he still managed to knock 5 seconds off of his previous best and his time of 9:50.40 puts him at #33 on the All-Time Cherokee List! To put this in perspective, Patrick raced only two 3200's in his life and they both have been sub-10:00! That's a big deal, especially for a Sophomore!
"Nick stayed very focused throughout the race despite all the jostling and ran incredibly well in only his first 3200! In fact, Nick's time of 9:38.60 (5th in his heat and 15th overall) established a New Cherokee Freshman Record, breaking the old mark of 9:40.02 set by Chris Spisak in 2017, and it also puts him at #22 on the All-Time Cherokee List! Again, greater perspective, Nick is currently the 14th fastest freshman in the nation at 3200! Not bad for his first attempt at the distance!
"Not to be outdone, Senior, Brett Shea, running his first 3200 of the year, put on a devastating kick to rocket away from the field over the last 150 meters, winning the heat and finishing 10th overall! Brett's time of 9:30.42 was a 20-second PR and puts him at #14 on the All-Time Cherokee List!"
Details, videos and pictures at: NJ.MileSplit.
Cherokee's meet pictures available at: Night of 32's
On April 24, 2021, the team welcomed another large group to the Cherokee Invitational # 1, an all-comers meet designed to fill-in the void caused by the absence of the Penn Relays this Pandemic year.
Unlike the Cherokee-Eastern Dual Meet, Fully Automatic Timing (FAT) was available and a number of Cherokee's Sprint athletes set new, legitimate, Personal Records!
Just skimming through the results, at least four sprinters set new personal records in the 400m Dash: Juniors Kevin Hess, Lucas Hatch, Josh Pawlik and Sophomore Marcellas Malloy!
In the 110m High Hurdles, Juniors Andy Kyrtatas and Wilson Leung reset their own records; and Freshman Ryan Bender established three first-time PR's in the High Jump, Long Jump and the Javelin!,/p>
In the Jumps, Senior Chima Opara set his own first-time PR in the Long Jump; and in the Pole Vault, Senior Zack Palfy was giving his own PR of 11' 0" although we know he had an 11' 6" vault last week (maybe not officially reported).,/p>
Finally, in the Throws, Senior Stephen Modile and Junior DJ Modile both recorded Discus and Shot Put PR's; while Adam Lopez put the Shot for his own personal record too!
Details and pictures at: NJ.MileSplit
Cherokee's pictures from the meet are at: Invitational #1.
On April 29, 2021, the team welcomed Washington Township High School another American Division challenger, for the second Dual Meet of the season, and they maintained their "record:" 2 - 0 and counting!
Skimming over the results sheet, one thing is apparent: Cherokee scored a lot of firsts! The meet started well on the track with Chris Brandreth taking 1st in the 400 Intermediate Hurdles; followed by Brett Shea and Nick Kuenkel taking 1st and 2nd in the 1600m! Soon after that, Tommy Bland, coming off an injury, took another 1st in the 400m; and then Nico Grilli, himself coming off a month's-long injury, took another surprising 1st in the 800m! Later in the meet, Brett Shea stepped-up again and took another 1st in the 3200m! Finally, the last of the 1st place wins on the track came from the 4 X 400m Relay guys -- Kevin Hess, Josh Pawlik, Lucas Hatch and Tommy Bland!
In the Field events, the Throwers and Jumpers almost matched the number of firsts taken by the runners! Dan Boria, usually a member of the distance squad, took up an new event and finished a surprising 1st in the Javelin, with Aiden King behind him in 2nd! Then, DJ Mondile took 1st in the Shot; and Zack Palfy took 1st in both the Triple Jump and the Pole Vault!
Combined, the team took 50 points in 1st place finishes alone!
In addition to Kuenkel and King's 2nd place finishes, Chima Opara chalked-up two, one in the 100m and a second in the 200m! Chris Brandreth picked up 2nd place points in the Triple Jump and 3rd place points in the High Hurdles; Andy Kyrtatas took 2nd in the Highs; Tony Campbell and Ryan Bender took 2nd and 3rd in the High Jump; Steve Mondile picked-up a couple 3rd place points in the Shot and Discus; and distance runners, Bradley Poplar and Tommy Bromley took 3rd place points in the 3200m and the 800m!
Final score: 78 - 62! A nice all-around victory! GO CHEROKEE!
Coach Shaklee was pretty impressed by his group's performance as he detailed what happened:
"We knew the Washington Twp meet was going to be close and that points in the distance events would be crucial. Competing without two of our top runners - Sophomores Patrick Ditmars and Conor Jacob - and with Senior Nico Grilli running his first race since December, made our job much more difficult against a good Washington Township distance crew. However, we rose to the occasion and got some outstanding performances to take 20 of 27 points in the 1600, 800 and 3200 meter events!
"In the 1600, Junior Jameson Crozier did a nice job of setting the early pace to help out his teammates. Not only did he bring them through the first half of the race where we wanted them, but he still managed to finish well and PR by several seconds, dipping under 5:00 for the first time in his career! Senior Brett Shea and Freshman Nick Kuenkel tucked in behind Jameson for the first 1000 meters before Brett went to the lead and broke things open. Only Nick was able to go with him and, together, they ran big negative splits to take 1st and 2nd!
"The 800 was another good race for us with Freshman Matteo Evola sacrificing his race to lead Nico Grilli and Sophomore Tommy Bromley through the first 400. At that point, Nico took over and opened-up on the rest of the field to win his first race back with a pretty nice time of 2:01.9! Tommy came close to his PR, running a very tough race to secure the 3rd spot behind Township's top man! Other PR's were set by Junior Joe Natoli, Sophomores Danny Hassall and Ethan Weisenberg, and Freshmen Luke Reistle and Nate Meyers! Of particular note were the races of Danny and Ethan as each of them competed well over the entire race and both dropped a lot of time off of their previous bests!
"The meet was still in doubt as we lined up for the 3200 meter run. Brett Shea was doubling back from the 1600 and we had Bradley Popler, Aiden Dickinson and Benny Hackney in the field as well. The four runners all ran tactically good, tough races with Brett showing his dominance in the last 400 (run in 61.8) to take 1st! Township's first man came in 2nd but he was followed by Bradley, Aiden and Benny to give us 6 of the 9 possible points in the event and help us secure a close team victory over Washington Township and move our overall record to 2 and 0!"
Additional details at: NJ.MileSplit.
Here are a few random shots for grins!
Here are all the Cherokee pictures from the Washington Township Meet.
On May 1, 2021, a fairly cold and windy morning, Cherokee took the long bus ride north to the Blue Devil Classic, a relay meet in Westfield, NJ. The official results are available but further comments will have to come later.
Our photographer made it within 5 miles of the Westfield High School Track on the Garden State Parkway before his car blew a tire and left him stranded! He swears that, at one time, Coach Shaklee drove by, sounded his horn, waved a hand greeting of some kind, and continued on! Unfortunately, there are no pictures of that event nor of the meet!
Apparently not shaken by the complaint lodged against him, Coach Shaklee sent the following comments on his group's performance:
"On Saturday, the team traveled an hour-and-a-half to Westfield High School for the Blue Devil Invitational. The distance squad made the long trip worthwhile with some very nice running in some very windy conditions!
"Bradley Popler and Benny Hackney got things started off well! They went 1-2 in Heat 1 of the 1600 and both set new PR's by several seconds, both running sub-5:00 for the first time!
"In the 800, seven of eight Cherokee runners set new PRs! More importantly, each of our runners ran very competitively from start to finish! Andrew Free and Jameson Crozier placed 3rd and 4th in Heat 2 and 14th and 15th overall! In Heat 3, Matteo Evola ran his best race of the year to PR by several seconds and almost win his heat, finishing a close 2nd and taking 13th overall! Behind Matteo, Bobby Poplau, Joe Natoli and Danny Hassall all ran strong races and all set new PR's! In Heat 4, Joe Hough showed a good turn of speed down the homestretch and almost caught the leader, finishing 2nd and knocking a bunch of time off of his previous best!
"Finally, the 4 X 800 Relay team of Tommy Bromley, Nick Kuenkel, Danny Boria and Brett Shea won their race running the 3rd fastest time in the state so far this year. Of particular note, were the races of Nick and Brett. Nick got the baton a ways behind the top two teams from CBA. He went out aggressively, caught them by the backstretch of the 2nd lap and ran away from them on the homestretch to give Danny the baton in first place. When Brett got the baton on the anchor, he was in 4th and had a lot of work to do to catch the leaders. He went out in 26.3 and 54.8 to close the gap! Despite this aggressive running in the wind, he still managed to close well and ran away from the CBA team down the homestretch to secure the win. Brett's split of 1:56.3 is one of the fastest splits ever by a Cherokee runner!
"Next up, the team faces district rival, Lenape, on Wednesday . . . and we hope our photographer won't stop this time to sun himself along the way!"
(What? . . . Wait . . . did Shaklee really write that last line?!)
Just skimming through the results, many members of the Sprint, Jump and Throws Groups did well too! Senior Thomas Bland set an official FAT PR of 55.56 in the 400m Dash for 4th/26 overall; and he was followed by Sophomore Stephen Trombetta in a PR of 55.53 for 6th; and Junior Evan Pawlik with his own PR of 58.38 and 14th!
In the 400m IH, Senior Christopher Brandreth dropped his PR to 1:01.38 while taking 9th/29 overall; and he was followed by Juniors Andy Kyrtatas and Wilson Leung with their own PR's of 1:06.76 and 1:07.47 in 23rd and 24th!
Only the final times of the various sprint relays were recorded on NJ.MileSplit, and no individual runners or their splits were provided.
Senior Chima Opara made modest PR improvements in the High Jump (5' 2", 11th/13 overall) and the Long Jump (18' 1", 9th/29 overall); and Freshman Ryan Bender set PR's in the Long Jump (17' 8", 14th/29 overall) and the Javelin (86' 8", 29th/34 overall).
Throwers, Senior Stephen Mondile and Junior Daniel Mondile set a pair of PR's in the Discus and the Shot! Stephen threw the Discus 89' 3" and Daniel threw it 89' 6", taking 29th/36 and 30th/36 in the competition; and in the Shot, Stephen put the Shot 35' 9" and Daniel put it 37' 9.5", taking 27th/41 and 24th/41 in the event! In addition, Senior Dan Boria stepped-up in the Javelin with his own PR of 95' 8", 26th/34 overall; and Junior Adam Lopez put the Shot 35' 8" (28th/41) to record his own PR!
Results at: NJ.MileSplit. In addition, Jim Lambert, former Sports Writer for the Star-Ledger and one of the most knowledgeable reporters on New Jersey XC and Track and Field, videoed the finish of the event at 4 X 800 Finish; and then interviewed Brett after the race at Shea Interview.
Postscript: Each week, NJ.MileSplit sponsors a poll where voters select the "Athlete of the Week." This week, the voters selected Brett Shea for his excellent anchor of the 4 X 800m Relay! Congratulations to Brett! Details at: NJ.MileSplit.
Photographer John Jones of NJ.com posted forty-six pictures from the boys half of the meet and ONE Cherokee runner made the final cut! That speedster is . . .
