Cherokee Cross Country Pictures, 2017, Page III





Olympic Conference Championship

On October 20, 2017, the team returned to Rowan University for the Olympic Conference Championship and "came home with their swords, and not on them!"

Before detailing their victory, our photographer spoke to a mother before the meet and she said that she had taken a thousand pictures of her son and not one was any good! Our photographer assumed she was commenting on her lack of photographic expertise and not on her son's looks while he was competing. Struck by this, our photographer was determined to capture her son at the height of competition! See his picture and try to identify the team member in question! GO _________!


Oly Conference


The Chiefs displayed their growing strength at the Olympic Conference Championship as they improved considerably over their performances at last week's Burlington County Championship! Senior Justin Kelly looked very strong in winning by a sizable margin against a good field,and he looks to be ready for SJ Sectionals, Group States and the Meet of Champions! Sophomore Chris Spisak also had another good one! He has been consistent throughout the season and it's always nice to start the team scoring with only 3 points through the first two runners as they have for the past two weeks!

Happily, Sophomore Chase Miller really stepped it up this week! His 7th place finish was a big improvement from last week as he ran really well over the last mile of the race and passed a number of runners in that stretch! Cherokee's 4th man, Sophomore Ethan Wechsler ran very well again to get 10th! As Coach Shaklee said, "It's nice to see the three sophomores racing so well, so consistently, and it definitely bodes well for the future!"

Senior Brandon Marks continued his comeback from injury with a much improved race over his county meet effort to get 12th! Again, Coach Shaklee: "With two more weeks of training before Sectionals, he should be able to close the gap on Miller and give us a strong pack, which we'll need against a great Kingsway team!" Finally, among the scorers, Seniors Jon Conn and Matt Smith both improved on their times from the South Jersey Shootout, run on the same course, to give us seven runners in the top 20!

The meet director allowed twelve runners in the race and Sophomore Mike Gavio, Freshman Brett Shea, Freshman Dylan Odud, Junior Mike Moraschi and Senior Mike Iannotta all ran between 17:09 and 17:36 which would have been a pretty good varsity squad in it's own right!

Cherokee will run everyone but their top 6 on at the Haddonfield Invitational and then focus on the start of the state championship series beginning with SJ Sectionals on November 4th! GO CHEROKEE!

Historically, Cherokee has done well at the Olympic Conference Championships! This was their 15th title since joining the Olympic Conference in 1996. There were 4 years in a row -- 2001,2002,2003 and 2004 -- that Cherokee did not run their top guys because the meet fell too close to the state championship series. In addition, this was Cherokee's 3rd title in a row! In 2015, the Chiefs tied with Cherry Hill East through five men and won the championship on a sixth man tiebreaker! Cherry Hill East ended up winning the Division by 1 point that year when the other teams were removed from the scoring, but Cherokee won the meet (conference) championship! FYI: the Olympic Conference is made up of fifteen schools, divided into three divisions -- the American, the National, and the Patriot -- and this was Cherokee's 16th Olympic Conference American Division championship. GO CHIEFS!

The coaches selected Justin Kelly as Runner of the Meet for his impressive winning effort! Justin took control of the race at the mile mark and ran away from the field to win in dominating fashion! GO JUSTIN! Others in the spotlight for Runner of the Meet were Chase Miller, who had his best race to date and finished strong over the last mile; Brandon Marks, who keeps getting better each meet and caught three runners in the last 400 meters of the race; and Mike Gavio, who set a huge PR at 17:10 and finished as Cherokee's 8th man!

Further details at: NJ.MileSplit.



Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf
Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf
Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf
Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf Oly_Conf





Haddonfield Invitational

On October 25, 2017, was a busy day for Cherokee's team at the Haddonfield Invitational in Pennypacker Park! Restricted to JV and Freshman runners, the meet was an important factor in deciding who would hold the 7th man slot at the upcoming SJ Sectional Championships. It also provided a unique opportunity for athletes to clock PR times on the fast, firm and flat layout. And, finally, it renewed an intra-team battle that has been going on for seventeen years!

As for the overall competition, Joe Falk ran well to get 3rd overall as Cherokee's first finisher, just in front of Matt Smith (4th) and Mike Gavio (5th)! Joe was already #6 on the "All-Time Cherokee Pennypacker List" with his 2nd place finish from last year. Matt and Mike moved up on the list to 8th and 10th! Brett Shea recovered from a fall near the start and moved up to finish 8th (and up to 26th on the list). Mike Iannotta, despite cramping up in the last 1/2 mile, recorded a sizable 5k PR to finish 10th, with Mike Moraschi setting his own PR right behind Iannotta in 11th! Dylan Odud and Matt Morgan came next to give Cherokee 8 of the top 18 finishers! Morgan's time was a big PR as well! Additional PR's were set by Ty Jackson, Bobby Hackney, Nico Grilli (who ran very well in his first race of the season after returning from injury), Bryan Lafferty, Ty Ortiz, Matt Campbell, Adam Kromish, Nik Kadirisani, Zac Miller, Aathi Anandan, Milo Barkow and Brian Stillwagon.

Again, with so many good performances, selecting the Runner of the Meet was not easy. However, the coaches quickly focused on Mike Gavio! Mike's time of 16:57.3 was another in a series of good races he has had lately! From the County Championship to the Conference Championship, to this, the Haddonfield Invitational, Mike has gotten better and better each week! It will be interesting to see what he can do next week at the Conference JV Championship at Rowan University! GO MIKE!

All of that is important but it pales when placed against the age-old intra-team battle for bragging rights! As usual, two evenly-matched squads, both in talent and numbers -- led by Coaches Shaklee and Thompson -- were selected and, while everyone expected a closely-scored match, no one thought it would evolve as it did!

Last year, everything about the match was exciting and -- scoring 9 runners on each team -- it was one of the closest in history with Coach Shaklee's team winning 84 to 87! Over the years, then, Coach Shaklee's teams won 11 times, (former) Coach Callinan's teams won 2 times, and Coach Thompson's teams won 1 time!

This year, perhaps bored with the lackluster names of last year's teams, they took a page out of literature and named their teams, "Thompson's Tortoises" and "Shaklee's Hares" . . . and how prescient that turned out to be!

As expected, it was a tight battle between the two evenly matched squads! The Hares got off to a fast start thanks to the 1-3-5-6-8 finish of the squad's first 5 rabbits . . . uh, runners! "In fact," as Coach Shaklee pointed out to the Cry-Baby Committee, "if using regular 5-man scoring, The Hares would have taken the victory 23-32 over the Tortoises! However, occasionally -- once a decade as Coach Thompson last won in 2007, and in the childrens' story -- The Tortoises beat The Hares!"

The victory that looked certain for The Hares vanished during the B race as The Tortoises - Milo Barkow, Nik Kadirisani and Zac Miller - all came through with their best races of the year to displace some of The Hares from the A race and give Thompson's Tortoises a close 106 to 108 victory! A tough defeat for The Hares but a great lesson for the team on the importance of the 6-7 men and how, although non-scorers, they can affect the race results by beating scorers from other teams!

The final summary: Coach Shaklee's teams won 11 times, (former) Coach Callinan's teams won 2 times, and Coach Thompson's teams won 2 times! Who won those other two years? Who cares?! . . . Thompson's buying the pizza!

Details at: NJ.MileSplit.


"Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot!" Well, maybe in this case, Sherlock Holmes would have said, "Come, Watson, come! Brett's under foot!" As the pictures show, Brett Shea was in the front of the team when, the evidence suggests, someone in the rear -- perhaps Mike Iannotta reliving his ice hockey days? -- tripped him! Or perhaps he tripped over his own feet? Hmmmmm . . . you decide! Whatever, Shea managed to recover and score important points in the Tortoises' victory! GO BRETT!


Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite

Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite
Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite
Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite
Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite
Haddon Invite Haddon Invite

Jon Falk, a real photographer, was at the meet to shoot his grandson and he shared a few with us:


Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite Haddon Invite





Olympic Conference JV Championships

On November 1, 2017, the team returned to Rowan University for the Olympic Conference JV Championships and, following the victory of the Varsity team two weeks ago, they handed a decisive defeat to the rest of the Conference!

Brett Shea stayed on his feet this time and ran both smart and tough to take the victory with a new 5K PR! Brett held back a bit in the start and then moved well over the 2nd half of the race to win by 20 seconds, narrowly missing the sub-17 barrier! Dylan Odud ran his most aggressive first mile of the season and continued to move aggressively over the remainder of the race to finish in 4th! Bobby Hackney showed a strong return to form with his best race to date! He got out well, stayed focused throughout and finished strong to place 5th with a new 5K PR! For his efforts, Bobby earned the Runner of the Meet honors! GO BOBBY! Other season bests were recorded by Aathi Anandan and Naledge Brown!

Meet details at: NJ.MileSplit.


Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV
Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV
Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV
Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV
Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV
Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV Oly Conf JV
Oly Conf JV








Return to the index for Cross Country Pictures, 2017

Return to the Main Page for Cherokee Cross Country