Cherokee High School senior Will Andes knows exactly what he will remember from the 2005 cross country season.
And it's not all the races the Chiefs ran well in. Instead, what sticks in his memory from this year is how the team reacted after a race they didn't win.
The scene was South Jersey sectionals at Delsea High School and Cherokee had just placed second to Washington Township in the Group 4 race. And it was while on a cool down that the true character of the team became apparent.
"We had just lost, but all we could talk about was what we could do next week," Andes said. "We stayed real positive."
By not beating themselves up over one race, the Chiefs were able to bounce back and place fourth at the Group 4 state meet and sixth at the Meet of Champions to close out the year.
It was performances such as these at the two biggest races of the season, coupled with consistent finishes throughout the year, that gives Cherokee the Courier-Post Cup, emblematic of the No. 1 team in South Jersey. It's the Chiefs' second straight Cup and their fifth in the last nine years.
"This one, to be honest, probably means more than the others," Cherokee coach Steve Shaklee said. "It was least expected. There were other teams that had more coming back on paper than we did."
But as Shaklee's group proved this season, what a team has back on paper means nothing. The Chiefs may not have had the most talented top seven in South Jersey, but by the end of the year, Shaklee and assistant coach Chris Callinan had every guy in the lineup running their best.
"This team absolutely exceeded my expectations," Shaklee said. "If you look at past results and what they did this year, their level of improvement was big. Every week there was someone different holding us together."
But before the season began, there were some questions surrounding Cherokee.
With only two varsity guys back from 2004 and only three guys on the team who had ever gone sub-18:00 at Holmdel, would the Chiefs be able to put together a top five good enough to end the year as South Jersey's best? Would the team be able to run well enough at Holmdel to compete with the state's top teams?
For senior Vinny Marziano, it was never a question of what the team was capable of.
"We kept telling ourselves that if we trained hard, we would be the best team in South Jersey," Marziano said. "We knew we lost a lot of people, but we were willing to put in the work."
But while Marziano and many of his teammates had little doubt heading into the season, Shaklee was a little unsure about what to make of his inexperienced group in the early going. At least until the South Jersey XC Shootout -- the first major meet of the season -- which is when Shaklee started to think differently about his team.
"I didn't see it until the guys started proving me wrong," Shaklee said. "The way they were training and racing convinced me they were better than I thought. It was after the South Jersey Shootout that I thought we had a legitimate shot to be the top team in South Jersey."
As it turns out, the Chiefs had more than a legitimate shot.
With senior Greg Bredeck, sophomore Alex Yersak, senior Rich Nelson, Andes, Marziano, junior Colin Cunningham and sophomore Kevin Schickling, Cherokee went through the ups and downs of the season and prevailed, ending the year atop South Jersey once again.
"They never gave up on it," Shaklee said. "They had an off race at sectionals and they redeemed themselves at states and Meet of Champs. Each individual focused on the team being the most important thing."