As expected, Coach Shaklee chose not to load the team he sent to DREAM Park for the South Jersey Open. He explained:
"The Top 10 Varsity runners took this meet off to train (double threshold day!). The next group did a great job of dominating the JV competition at the SJ Open, placing six runners in the top nine to win the race with a low score of 16 points!
"Leo Vyvyan continued his outstanding season with a 26-second victory over teammate, Gavin Danielewicz. Leo's winning time of 17:27 was a 45-second course PR! Behind Leo and Gavin, Bruce Novoa - 5th, Max Harada - 6th, Carlo Brown - 8th and Liam Daimler - 9th, all ran well, with a special shout out to Carlo who managed to run that well in his first ever cross country race! In addition to those six, for good measure, we also had two other runners among the top 16 in the field of 167: Freshmen - Evan Amato - 12th and Trayce Slumsky - 16th!
"Next up, the team will travel to Millcreek Park in Willingboro on Friday for the Burlington County Championship"! Be there or be square!
While the coaches often debate who will be named "The Athlete of the Week", because so many of their runners do well in a race, again, the decision was an easy one this time! Leo Vyvyan pressed the pace from the gun and held the lead through the finish, winning by a lot and crushing his former PR on the course! What a treat to watch! CONGRATULATIONS! GO LEO!
Details at: NJ.MileSplit.
Our photographer shot the meet, as did, Mathfact, a MileSplit photographer, and some of our photographers' pictures are posted below, as are these and others of both photographers on our Google link! Be impressed by the photos and the runners!
In the Fourth MileSplit Poll, Cherokee dropped from 4th to 5th in the rankings, largely because the Varsity was inactive during that week. In the Fifth MileSplit Poll, Cherokee remained in 5th with CBA, Haddonfield, Colts Neck and Westfield ahead of them. Details at: NJ.MileSplit.
The Fifth SJTCA Poll dropped Cherokee to 2nd behind Haddonfield and followed by Cherry Hill East, Ocean City and Highland. Haddonfield did some great racing last week while Cherokee's Varsity continued to train. The BC Open Championship is this week but Haddonfield will not be there. Details at: SJTCA.
Finally, the Fifth NJ.com Poll continue to rank Cherokee at 4th behind CBA, Haddonfield and Westfield. Details at: NJ.com.
On Friday, October 18th, 2024, the team traveled to Millcreek Park in Willingboro to compete against the county in the BC Cross County Open! The goal wasn't so much to set individual records but to pack the runners and continue the team's outstanding record of victories at the Open!
Coach Shaklee sent the following review of the day's action:
"The Cherokee Boys Cross Country Team had a good day at the Burlington County Open on Friday at Millcreek Park!
"Things got off to a strong start in the JV race which saw Cherokee sweep the first eleven places, led by senior, Anthony DiBattista, the individual champion! Anthony's time of 17:06 gave him a 35-second victory over teammate, Dom Pileri, who, in his return from injury, ran very well in his first race since last cross country season! Behind Dom, Tate Midora, Leo Vyvyan, Gavin Danielewicz, Max Harada, Bruce Novoa, Liam Daimler, Carlo Brown, Dylan Weiner and Evan Amato placed third through eleventh in the field of 142 runners! Jack Finley - 15th, Charlie Wasserott - 21st and Sam Wright - 22nd, gave Cherokee 14 of the first 22 places in the race!
"With the championship season just beginning, and with a lot of challenging races coming up, the goal for the varsity squad was to run together and get the win while expending as little effort as possible, saving the big efforts for later! That is exactly what they did! With 3/4 of a mile to go, a group of nine runners, including seven from Cherokee, were all running together. Over the last segment of the race, things picked up when Freshman, Jack Tindall, went to the lead. Jack did just enough to hold the lead to the line for the win, becoming the first freshman ever to win the Burlington County Championship! Behind Jack, Ben Realley - 3rd, Logan Bromley - 4th, Enzo Corona - 5th, Liam Tindall - 6th, Ben Weiner - 7th and Sean Sooy - 8th, all finished within 17 seconds to give Cherokee a score of 19, and a 49 point victory over second place, Shawnee! The win extended the team's county win streak to 11 years and was the 26th county championship in school history!
"Next up, the team will head to Dream Park on October 24th to face rival, Cherry Hill East, at the Olympic Conference Championship!"
The coaches selected Anthony DiBattista as the Runner of the Meet after his strong showing in the JV Race! He forced the pace the entire way winning the race by 35 seconds over his closest opponent! CONGRATULATIONS! GO ANT-NEEE!!
Details at: NJ.MileSplit.
A special article by Jim Lambert, "Burlington: Cherokee Sweeps, Tindall, Gordon Make History" is available at: NJ.MileSplit.
Reuben Frank picked-up on Cherokee's outstanding win at the BC Open: SJTCA Blog,
~~ Burlington County Cross Country Open ~~ Our photographer was even more disappointed than the runners when the only local hill, The Matterhorn of South Jersey, and the best local venue for picture-taking, was cut from the course because of "the erosian of the trail." One kid sprained his ankle last year so the township lawyers banned its use instead of having some dirt put down! Anywho, he will post a small number of pictures from the meet here and they and the rest of the pictures on our Google site. Enjoy!
"Cherokee returned to DREAM Park for the Olympic Conference Championships and Coach Shaklee made this report.
"On October 28th, 2024, coming off the Burlington County Championships, to which we were able to take a low-key approach, we knew that the Olympic Conference Championship would be a different story. We would be facing off against New Jersey's sixth-ranked team, Cherry Hill East. When we last faced them, at the Shore Coaches Invitational, we narrowly beat them by only three points. East had not raced since that meet and we knew they were coming in looking for an upset victory.
"Early in the Varsity race, things were going as expected as most of the front pack consisted of Cherokee and Cherry Hill East runners. Half way through the race, it was a toss-up. As the front pack hit the 2 mile mark, Jack Tindall began to assert himself and the pack started to string out. With 3/4's of a mile to go, the complexion of the race was changing in favor of Cherokee. Still the East runners were close so the outcome was not yet determined. Over the last part of the race, the Cherokee runners did a great job of finishing strong and, as they crossed the line, Cherokee had six of the first seven places!
"Just as he had done at the county meet last week, Jack Tindall became the first freshman to win the Olympic Conference championship and establish a new freshman record on the DREAM Park course of 15:33!
"Ben Realley crossed next in 15:41, the second fastest sophomore time ever recorded on the course! Liam Tindall not only finished third but he held off a challenge from East's first runner to secure that spot! His time of 15:46 was twenty five seconds faster than what he ran at the Conference meet last year! After Cherry Hill's first runner crossed in fourth, Logan Bromley, Sean Sooy and Enzo Corona swept the next three spots all running between 15:53 and 15:58, giving us six runners under 16:00! The seventh man, Ben Weiner, was not far back, finishing twelfth in 16:08 and, for good measure, Anthony DiBattista and Tate Midora finished in nineteenth and twentieth, running 16:24 and 16:29! Tenth man, Dom Pileri, had a challenging day as someone clipped his heel early in the race and his shoe was on the verge of coming off from that point, until it finally did, a half mile from the finish. Dom fought through that adversity and still managed a respectable 39th place finish in the field of 114 runners, with a time of 17:12.
"With a score of 17, we easily beat the rest of the conference. If they were combined into one team, the score would have been Cherokee - 17, Everyone else - 42. In addition, the boys established a new 5 man average record at Dream Park of 15:45, breaking the old record of 15:48 set by the 2022 Cherokee squad at the sectional meet!
"The JV team then took to the course and were determined to live up to the example set by the Varsity squad. And they did!
"Gavin Danielewicz, Max Harada, and Leo Vyvyan led the charge, sweeping the first three spots, all running between 17:05 and 17:13! Carlo Brown, in his first year of cross country, and only his third race, took fifth in 17:40! Freshman, Dylan Weiner, completed our team scoring, finishing 11th in 18:12! That gave us a low score of 22 points, good enough to, once again, beat the rest of the conference even if they were all one team! Almost every other Cherokee runner ran extremely well, with Charlie Wasserott getting the award for the biggest improvement, running 4:34 seconds faster than his time from last year! Last year he was 102nd. This year he finished in 21st place!
"Freshman, Dylan Weiner, completed our team scoring, finishing 11th in 18:12! That gave us a low score of 22 points, good enough to, once again, beat the rest of the conference even if they were all one team! Almost every other Cherokee runner ran extremely well, with Charlie Wasserott getting the award, Athlete of the Meet, for the biggest improvement, running 4:34 seconds faster than his time from last year! Last year he was 102nd. This year he finished in 21st place! CONGRATULATIONS! GO CHARLIE!
"Next up, everyone but the top seven will race on Tuesday at the Haddonfield Sub-Varsity Meet. The varsity squad will prepare to compete for their 6th consecutive sectional championship next Saturday back at Dream Park!"
Details at: Burlington County Open Championship.
Reuben Frank reviewed the race at: SJ Track Blog.
Our photographer was unavailable for the meet but one of three Cherokee parents, Mesdames Kumar, Healy and Butler took a number of great pictures for Conference that are available at: Edited Boys Google Link.
Here are a few from that selection edited by our compulsive photographer:
On October 19th, 2024, Cherokee's Junior-Varsity traveled to Haddonfield High School for the Baker Sub-Varsity Invitational. In years past, the meet was run on a fast, flat course and Cherokee built it up as a great opportunity for JV runners to set final PR's for the season! In addition, even faster racing was encouraged by dividing the runners into two teams and creating an intramural situation!
Two powerful teams, each led by an aging but wiley coach . . . the goal: PR's and bragging rights!
For the record, since Coach Shaklee and former Coach Callinan, now at Central Administration, instituted this competition years ago, the record stands at:
Coach Shaklee - 13 wins
Coach Callinan - 2 wins (forever)
Coach Thompson - most recent addition to the coaching squad - 5 wins
Coach Shaklee sent this unbiased vieew of the event!
"With the top seven runners preparing for sectionals, the rest of the team headed to Pennypacker Park on Tuesday, October 29th, for the Baker Sub-Varsity Invitational - the unofficial South Jersey JV championship.
The Pennypacker Park course is usually fast but changes made to the course due to construction, and the dry dusty weather, made the course pretty slow this year. Still, it was a chance to see how we would fare against the other programs in South Jersey.
In the B race, which went first, we had just one runner, Fletcher D'Alessandro, and he made the most of it. Fletcher was the only Cherokee runner on the day to set a new PR as he dropped 10 seconds off of his previous best from the Olympic Conference Meet!
The A race was next and the Cherokee runners were ready! Anthony DiBattista - 1st, Tate Midora - 2nd, Dom Pileri - 4th, Gavin Danielewicz - 6th, Max Harada - 7th and Leo Vyvyan - 8th gave us six runners among the top eight for a commanding team victory with a mere 20 points! Bruce Novoa - 19th, Liam Daimler - 21st, Evan Amato - 23rd and Carlo Brown - 25th made it ten Cherokee runners among the top twenty-five! Seven of those ten are back next year to contend for spots in the varsity seven!
The Intrasquad competition was a little closer, but not particularly close as the middle of the Thompson Team line-up did a great job against their counterparts on Team Shak, winning 49 to 56. Through six runners, it was close with Team Shak up by one over Team Thompson. It was at that point that things began to change in favor of Thompson's runners, as they took five of the next seven places to seal the victory. Coach Shaklee was only slightly disappointed, however, as he took comfort in the strong overall performance by the entire team, which dominated the meet and demonstrated that Cherokee is not just seven runners strong, but has quality athletes throughout the entire roster!
Details at: NJ.MileSplit.
Our photographer was unavailable for the meet but Coach Thompson made this available to all!
