MAPLE SHADE — Chris Steliga and his Cherokee track teammates are going to enjoy every minute of this.
With the team of Steliga, Kevin Merrigan, Niraj Patel and Will Rapp in both races, Cherokee High School won the 400- and 800-meter relays yesterday in the large-school Liberty Division of yesterday's 39th annual Hall of Fame Relays at Maple Shade.
“There's only a certain number of chances I'll have to run with these guys so I want to make the best of each chance and give it a great effort,” Steliga said. “The season will be over before you know it, so we want to run fast every meet. We're trying to set the bar high so the people who come after us will have to work that much harder to accomplish what we do.”
Cherokee tied the school record in the 800-meter relay and nearly broke the school mark in the shorter race as well. Using the Merrigan-to-Rapp-to-Patel-to-Steliga lineup, Cherokee won the 800 relay in 1:31.2, not far from Lenape's nine-year-old meet record of 1:30.4. The Chiefs tied the school record set in 2003 by the team of Jason Chao, Leo Klawiter, Joe Scialabbo and Alex Whirledge.
In the 400 relay, with Merrigan setting up Patel, Steliga and Rapp, Cherokee won in 43.8, a fraction off the school mark of 43.79 set by Merrigan, Steliga, Steve Watson and Sam Shapiro at last year's Penn Relays.
“We've been working hard in practice, and we came out here and ran our best,” Merrigan said. “Our coaches are always stressing being ready for our races and having perfect handoffs, and I think we did both today. It's the first meet, but we were definitely ready. Those were good times for today, but we're definitely looking to drop both times this year.”
In all, Cherokee won seven of 16 events. Steliga and Major Mobley took only one attempt apiece in the triple jump but both surpassed 40 feet and broke the 30-year-old meet record set by the 1978 Willingboro team of Carl Lewis and Tom Mayfield.
“That's hard to believe,” Steliga said.
It's also hard to believe how much Cherokee has improved as a sprint school. Merrigan and Steliga are proven, experienced sprinters, but Patel and Rapp have been huge surprises. Patel has improved dramatically from last year, while Rapp is a first-year runner.
“I recruited him,” Merrigan said of Rapp. “He's played baseball with me for a long time — I knew he was fast and he'd do really well. And Niraj, he's just improved so much it's unbelievable. We push each other all the time, and it only makes each of us better.”