This year, the Winter Season served largely as a time for well-conditioned athletes to sharpen for serious competition in this Season and for they and new and/or "rusty" athletes to make long-term preparations for the up-coming Spring Season. The athletes had time to work on skills and conditioning, strength training and distance foundation; and they had even more opportunities than ever to compete at various meets, setting new PR's and closing-in on old school records! GO CHIEFS!
On February 20th, 2024, a small number of Cherokee's athletes returned to the Bennett Center in Toms River for the SJTCA Winter Meet # 20, a "last chance" opportunity for members of the Winter Program to race, jump, or throw this season.
Coach Viscidy sponsored a group of sprinters, jumpers and throwers at the meet:
Among the Sprinters, in the 55m Dash, Lance Cheng and Mateo Rosario tied for 9th/ and 10th/25 overall in 7.23, with Mateo picking up a small PR. Daniel Raider finished 23rd/25 in 8.09. In the 400m Dash, Carlo Brown took 4th/16 overall in 56.73, only slightly off his PR, even though he got caught up in somewthing in that second lap! Matthew Wuschek clocked 58.72 and finished 9th/16 overall; and Noah Simo took 13th/16 overall in 62.23, a slight PR his second time out! In the 55m High Hurdles, Daniel Raider took 5th/11 overall in 9.56, slightly over his PR. Finally, the 4 X 200m Relay team of Lance Cheng, Mateo Rosario, Carter Rutter and Carlo Brown took 2nd/5 overall in 1:42.06!
Among the Vaulters, Tobin Horwath, tied for 3rd while clearing 9' 6", his best so far; and Shamus Horwath took 8th, while clearing 8' 0". The competition for the High Jumpers was weak but at least one, Sam Green used the opportunity to set another outstanding PR of 6' 3" in the event! Noah Calderon set an official PR of 5' 6"!
Volunteer Distance Coach Shaklee drove all the way to Toms River to see two of his young Freshmen runners perform! Sean Sooy took 2nd/19 overall in 4:47.64, while Gavin Donielewicz crossed the line in 5:07.49, finishing in 7th/19 overall. Both PR'ed at the distance and Shak was glad he was there!
Among the Throwers, Micah Diaz put the Shot 34' 01" and took 4th/12 overall; and Jordan Stone put it 25' 05.50" and took 11th/12 overall. Neither managed a PR this time.
Further meet details at: NJ.MileSplit.
Our photographer was there for only a short time but caught a few of our guys in action. Here are a few and these and others are posted on our Google site.
On March 3rd, 2024, the top athletes in the state - including the cream of the Cherokee program - converged on the Ocean Breeze Track & Field Center on Staten Island for the fantastic New Jersey State Indoor Meet of Champions and Coach Shaklee sent his report on the event!
"The Cherokee boys had some outstanding performances at the State Meet of Champions on Sunday, March 3rd at the Ocean Breeze Track & Field Center on Staten Island, NY!
"In the field, Sam Green saved his best for the biggest meet of the season, clearing another outstanding PR this season of 6'4" to place 5th!
"On the track, the 4 x 800 Relay team of Ben Realley, Tate Midora, Sean Sooy and Andrew Free finished 19th. Although three of the four have recently missed school due to illness, they still acquitted themselves well against the best teams in the state. Tate Midora had the fastest split which was about a half-second faster than his best open time! Freshman, Sean Sooy had a particularly good race, beating his previous best time by almost 3 seconds!
"Bobby Poplau was up next in the 800. Against a loaded field, Bobby ran a great race to finish in third with a new PR and a new indoor school record! His time of 1:53.45 makes him the second fastest Cherokee runner in the event, indoors or out! He was also the top finisher from South Jersey and has not lost to another runner from South Jersey this season!
"Nick Kuenkel and Liam Tindall ran the 3200. Like the 4 x 800 guys, Liam was returning from illness and was not at 100%. Although he was disappointed with his time, it is good to note that a disappointing time for Liam now is much faster than he ran all of last year. He has definitely moved to a new level and he has had a great winter season!
"Although the coach (Coach Shaklee) was unaware of it ahead of time, Nick Kuenkel was under the weather coming into the meet :illness has been making its way through the team over the past couple of weeks. In his usual stoic fashion, Nick kept it to himself and did not make excuses. [Editor's comment: it's the Meet of Champions and he ain't no wimp!] He put everything he had into the race and came away with a third place finish in a time (9:08.42) that makes him the third fastest Cherokee runner ever in the 3200! His determination was impressive! It also put him in the medical room receiving treatment for 30+ mins following the race! It was quite possibly one of the toughest races we have ever witnessed by a Cherokee runner!
"Next, the team will travel to Boston for the New Balance Indoor Nationals. Hopefully, everyone is feeling healthy and ready to go when we get there! It has been a great winter season and we want to end it on a high note!"
Details at: NJ.MileSplit.com.
Reuben Frank NBC TV Columnist, Radio personality on 94-WIP, Blogger "Eagles Eye", and writer of the SJTCA web blog reported on Bobby's and Nick's races, and added detailed records' lists at: BOBBY, SMOKING HOT MEET OF CHAMPIONS . . .! He followed that with . . . Nick Kuenkel 3rd with 6th fastest time in SJ History!
Our photographer and Tom Smith, a photographer for NJ.MileSplit and a friend of Cherokee, took pictures of our guys and a few are posted here and they and others are posted on our Google site! Pictures identified with tom01 to tom29 are Tom Smith's! Another MileSplit photographer (aka. "Machinegun") took 300+ pictures of Boys High Jump but none of Sam Green! Asked why, he said he was "too beautiful!" Get out! Sam?! Was that sarcasm?! Mom?
On March 3rd, 2024, the top athletes in the state finished the 2023-24 Indoor/Winter Season at the Meet of Champions at the Ocean Breeze Track and Field Center, Staten Island, NY., and the coaching members of the SJTCA met the following day to vote on the season's All-South Jersey Team Award Winners! From this meeting, four members of Cherokee's team were named to this highly-respected team!
Bobby Poplau, 800m and 4 X 800m
Nick Kuenkel, 3200m and 4 X 800m
Andrew Free, 4 X 800m
Ben Realley, 4 X 800m
Congratulations to all four runners!
Details on the entire team at: SJ Track.
Skipping ahead to March 20th, 2024, the SJTCA held their annual Winter Track All-SJ Awards Meeting at Hammonton High School (only Cross Country can hold a full-blown Awards dinner because of a commonalty that Track lacks) and Coach Shaklee took charge of picture-taking!
Coach Shaklee took four of his runners to a long racing weekend in Boston -- with strong financial support from Cherokee's XC and Track Alums -- and he reviewed their weekend in the following:
"The Cherokee Boys Track Team had four athletes competing in the New Balance National Championship meet in Boston, Thursday through Sunday, March 7th through 10th: Ben Realley in the Freshman 800, Bobby Poplau in the Championship 800, Nick Kuenkel in the Championship 2 Mile; and the 4 x Mile Relay team of Bobby Poplau, Liam Tindall, Ben Realley & Nick Kuenkel. The first 3 days were at the Reggie Lewis Center, which has a good track but was too small a venue for the event, making it uncomfortable and hard to watch what was going on. On Sunday, the meet moved to the very impressive Track at New Balance, a beautiful facility which was able to handle the crowd in attendance!
"The 4 x mile was first on Thursday and things did not start off well for the group. After a solid lead-off by Bobby Poplau to put the team in 5th (with roughly a 4:16 mile leg), Liam Tindal, still struggling to return to form after illness, ran the second leg and, despite not being at his best, ran competitively and handed off in 6th to freshman, Ben Realley. By this point in the race, things were spread out and somewhat confusing. Ben, who has also struggled to return to form after being sick, seemed a little "out of it" as he was being passed by runners from other teams. With a lap to go, it appeared that he would run a time well off his best when, without warning, the officials rushed Nick onto the track a lap early. As a result, Nick had to run 9 laps to make up for the 7 laps run by Ben. It was weird, confusing and really no longer feeling like a race but just a survival exercise. To his credit, Nick maintained a decent steady pace despite the extra lap but it was a far cry from what we felt we were capable of running and we finished 12th overall.
"The following morning, Ben Realley was up again in the Freshman 800. Although it was a slow pace through the 400, Ben was caught in the back of the pack when things got going, effectively taking him out of the race for first. He closed well and finished 5th (5th in the nation ain't bad!), but it was clear that he was still not back to his form from earlier in the season. When 100% healthy, Ben is capable of racing with any freshman in the country!
"On Saturday, Nick Kuenkel, ran in the 5th of 7 heats of the 2 mile championship. The race went out very aggressively and was very physical with a lot of contact and not much chance to find a rhythm early on. When things finally settled in, Nick found himself separated from the leaders and running with the chase pack, who were not so much chasing as just maintaining an even pace. He closed well over the last lap to run his second fastest time (his 9:12.26 for 2 Miles converting to 9:09.06 for 3200), but he is capable of running faster. Still, this is the first year that Nick has trained and raced consistently through th' winter and it bodes well for his spring season where he will be chasing both Shawn Wilson's 1600 meter school record of 4:11.69 and Marc Pelerin's 3200 school record of 9:01.89!
"The highlight of the trip came on Sunday when the meet moved to the Track at New Balance and Bobby Poplau took the track for the Championship 800. He was in heat 8 of 10, a heat in which just about the entire field came in with personal bests between 1:53.0 and 1:53.9! On paper, it was anybody's race. When the runners reached the cut-in mark after the second turn of the first lap, Bobby slid into 3rd place! Coming on to the homestretch of lap 2, he moved past the second runner and closed on the leader! As the leader began to slow the pace, Bobby went by him to take the lead with one lap to go. He ran a strong last lap but could not shake the previous leader who stayed with him to the final stretch. From there, it was a battle to the finish which Bobby narrowly lost by 4/100th of a second! While he would love to have won the heat, he knew he gave it his best and, in doing so, came away with not only a new PR but a new school record of 1:52.74, finally surpassing the oldest track record on the Cherokee books, the 1:53.14 run by Dave Sitzer when he finished 3rd at the New Jersey Meet of Champions in 2000. To his credit, Dave was thrilled to hear of the new record and spoke with Bobby by phone that day to congratulate him on his accomplishment! Bobby has made great progress this year and he will battle with Nick Kuenkel to take down the 1600 school record this spring while dropping even more time off of his own school record in the 800!
"It was a very good winter season for the team and we are all excited to move into the spring season and see what this group can accomplish next!"
Though probably inappropriate for our high school website, we mention once again 8th grader and soon Cherokee Chief, Jack Tindall, who also raced at the NB Nat's. In the past two weeks, Jack was reported to have raced 4:35 and 4:30 in 1600m, and this week, Jack raced the Middle School Mile in 4:30.19 and took 2nd/81 overall! Sorry about the picture!
Details at: New Balance Website.
Reuben Frank wrote an article on Bobby's super 800m race at: Poplau sets another County record.
Our photographer was unavailable but he took pictures of the races as they showed on his computer -- most of which were awful and discarded -- and accepted pictures from Cricket Batz Shaklee the coach's wife and anyone else who knew this was a very big deal just to make it to "The Nats" and race! He will post a few here and probably ignore the Google site.
CONGRATULATIONS COACH! CONGRATULATIONS PARENTS! CONGRATULATIONS BOYOS! . . . THANKS ALUMS!
Ben makes "the Bigs!" The only decent picture we have from Nats, a New Balance photographer took advantage of the Freshman Championship 800m line-up, including Ben, to create a picture (edited by our photographer) later used as the cover for the PHOTO section of their website! Ben becomes a "coverboy!"
In the hands of our photographer, Photoshop refused to improve on the multiple attempts by various friends and relatives to capture the athletes in their races. Maybe the New Balance Championships OUTDOORS?
On March 16th, 2024, the Adrenaline 5k, formerly the charity fund-raiser, the Bancroft Run, a roadrace in Haddonfield, ran as usual but things have changed. Years ago, before any of our present team members were alive, the entire Distance Squad raced, largely for team bonding, fun and as a test of their winter conditioning, but now the Winter/Indoor Season is different: it's significantly longer and there are many more racing opportunities than in the past. A demanding 5K just isn't in the cards after a tough Winter/Indoor Season, especially for top runners, that ended just last week!
This year, Coach Shaklee called for a regular Distance practice at school so none of our present athletes were at Haddonfield. There were, however, many Alums, parents and friends of Cherokee, so our photographer went over too. His pictures, if he saw you in the mob, are available on our Google site.
Details, including finish line video, at: Run Sign Up.
Did I say "none of our present athletes . . .?" While shooting, our photographer swore he recognized one of this year's team . . . "Ant-knee!" . . . "Ant-knee DiBattista?!". . . "What's he doing here . . . wearing the flag of Ireland covering his junk?" . . . Maybe it wasn't Ant-knee?! Nah, couldn't be! You decide!
