Last year, the season began with some relatively cold days but soon the winter became a lot warmer than usual. So far, that's the pattern for this year! It began with days around 10 degrees below normal but lately it's been realtively decent for outdoor training. Come on, it's winter: it hasn't been "Florida pleasant" but it hasn't snowed yet! As usual, the distance guys get out and run, focusing on base and strength training, while the throwers, jumpers and sprinters find warmer days or warmer places to work on skills and conditioning, and all look forward to a few indoor meets to check on how things are progressing. GO CHIEFS!
On January 8th, 2019, Cherokee introduced their 10th Annual Throw Down Series hosting Cherokee Throw Down # 1, the first of three Shot Put meets this season. This year, the meets are limited to 250 athletes and that number competed in the South Gymnasium and Cafeteria.
Only five of Cherokee's throwers participated in the meet and details on their performances are coming soon. There are, however, some pictures available from the meet.
Official results at: NJ.MileSplit.
On January 12th, 2019, Cherokee traveled to The Bubble in Toms River for the Olympic and Tri-County Conference Meet and the early highlight is the record-setting 4 X 800m Relay race by the Freshman group, Matt Ambrose, Jameson Crozier, Bradley Poplar and Aiden Dickinson! Competing against 12 other Varsity teams, the guys finished 3rd in the Conference and made it look easy!
Wait . . . wait . . . what?! It WAS easy because they ran some unorthodox legs? Huh? How do you do that? Four laps for 800m, pass the baton. Easy-Peasy. However, in this race, the lead-off runner actually raced the appropriate four laps and passed the baton. Easy Peasy. But then the second guy runs five laps because his third man isn't there for the exchange; the last two guys apparently got bored or confused and decided three laps were enough . . .. Wait . . . wait, now we're confused; and so were the officials who awarded them the 3rd place finish!
We checked with Coach Shaklee, who was banging his head against a bleacher seat, and he calmly explained that the guys need more practice counting to four. Before he went to the scorer's table to report on their error and have his team DQ'd, he congratulated Matt Ambrose for an appropriate and strong lead-off leg, 9 seconds better than his previous best, and James Crozier (perhaps sarcastically) on his strong 1K on the second leg!
Beyond the Freshman 4 X 8, the distance squad raced pretty well at the meet! Ethan Wechsler recorded a stunning PR in the 3200m Run despite having to lead the race from the gun! Challenged throughout but especially in the last lap, Ethan clocked a strong 29 seconds in that final 200m to finish in 9:28.0! That time, by the way, moved Ethan to #10 on the All-Time Cherokee records list! In the same race, Chase Miller also ran well to place 5th in the Conference! Finally, in the 800m Run, both Bobby Hackney and Dylan Odud set PR's!
While the distance team still claims Ty Jackson as one of their own, he moved down in distance and won the Olympic Conference 400m Dash with a grand effort -- a PR! -- and then he came back with a nice split in the 4 X 400m Relay! Not to be outdone, Tyler Ortiz and Aatish Gupta clocked their own PR's in the 400m, 54.56 and 57.14 respectively!
Several other bonafide members of the Sprint squad had some nice races too! In the 55m High Hurdles, Tray Cabbagestalk and Ty Ortiz advanced to the Finals while running just 1/10th of a second off their lifetime PR's! Tray finished 3rd in the finals at 8.36 and Ty finished in 6th while dropping his time from the early qualifier of 9.07 to 8.87! In the 55m Dash, Tray Cabbagestalk returned and he and Will Delendik both advanced to the Finals. Tray qualified at 7.04 and finished 7th in the Finals at 7.11; Will qualified at 6.93 and finished 3rd in the Finals at 6.86! TWO 3rd place points brought to Cherokee by the Sprinters!
Coach Petruzzi suggested the real highlight of the day was Will Delendik's survival in the 4 X 400m Relay! For years, Will has specialized in the shorter races and, apparently, Will was sure he would die if he tried to race one of the "really-long" 400m legs of the relay! With EMT's standing by, Will joined Tyler Ortiz, Tyler Jackson and Aatish Gupta in the 4 X 4 that raced to 4th place in the event! Will clocked 57.4 and guaranteed he'll be in other 4 X 4's as the season continues! GO WILL!
Off the track, over on the infield, Zach Palfy quietly went about his business at the Pole Vault, clearing 9' for the first time!
Official results at: NJ.MileSplit
Finally, Reuben Frank, former sports reporter for the Burlington County Times, and now a TV personality on Comcast's Sports staff, writes an in-depth blog for the South Jersey Track Coaches Association. This week, he wrote a thorough comment on the 3200m race! The article is way down on Page 3 and, as blogs and articles tend to disappear, we copied it Reuben Frank Blog. Those in the know will recognize that, while Mr. Frank was impressed by the race, he only added three exclamation points at the end of the headline!!! Five was THE major biggie in the XC season but we see this winter he has already moved to six . . . and that wasn't even an Olympic Record! Still, we appreciate the recognition!
On January 23rd, 2019, a select group of Cherokee athletes returned to The Bubble in Toms River for the NJSIAA New Jersey State Group 4 Relay Championships and provided at least two great-looking performances!
The night began with a highly-competitive Distance Medley Relay and the Cherokee guys made it "a race" from the beginning! Chase Miller led-off in the 1200m leg, improving on his previous 1200 run on January 5th, to hand off in 5th place. On the second leg, the 400m, Tyler Ortiz recorded his fastest time ever, narrowing the gap on the leaders! Then Tyler Jackson PR'd in the 800m leg -- only his second sub-2:00 clocking -- and moved the Cherokee baton into the lead! (Yikes!) Finally, Ethan Wechsler the anchor man on the 1600m leg, began his leg with a slim lead and some very strong runners behind him, including last winter's Group 4 State Champion, Francis Martingale, of Memorial West NY. Although he closed in a very quick 28.7 for his final 200m, Ethan narrowly lost the lead to Martingale and the team settled for 2nd with the 6th fastest time in the state this winter! (Did we say Yikes?!)
The next event, the 55m Shuttle Hurdles Relay, run by Tra Cabbagestalk, Tyler Ortiz and Chris Brandreth and his brother, Ben Brandreth didn't shock the audience with their time but they managed a team PR and that's good! Tyler Ortiz was credited with the fastest leg in the race.
Finally, the last event Cherokee participated in, the 4 X 200m Relay, was definitely worth waiting for! Tra Cabbagestalk, Andrew Elsey, Will Delendik and Will Hayes not only raced a new PR for the season but also ran the fastest 4 X 200m Relay for Cherokee since 2013! Yikes, again! All four looked good with nice exchanges and a victory in their heat, and Will Delendik was credited with the fastest leg in the race!
Official results at: NJ.MileSplit.
Tom Smith of NJ.MileSplit posted the following showing some of our athletes. We post these with permission:
On January 26th, 2019, another select group of Cherokee athletes traveled to the fantastic Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex on Staten Island, New York, for the Ocean Breeze Invitational and, for many, it was a successful outing!
The largest part of that contingent was the Distance Squad and, as Coach Shaklee reported, ". . . Overall, things went well for the distance runners up in New York. Things started on a positive note with Ty Jackson running a PR of 1:58.36 for the 800m despite being in heavy traffic, with lots of contact, for the first half of the race which necessitated running wide on a couple of turns. Tyler's time moves him to # 17 on the All-Time Cherokee list (up from 21st)! Bobby Hackney also PR'd in his 800m race by about 2 seconds after getting a terrible start and having to do a lot more work for the first 400m than a racer wants!
Three and a half hours later, the mile heats began and they also started well for us with Ethan Wechsler finishing 3rd in 4:20.21, which converts to 4:18.70 for 1600 meters! That time moves him to # 6 on the All-Time Cherokee list behind Cherokee greats Shawn Wilson '13, Marc Pelerin '02, Steve Burkholder '10, Justin Kelly '18 and Josh Joseph '01! In heat 4, Chase Miller ran his best race of the winter and set a new indoor PR! Others running well and exceeding their seed times were Mike Gavio, Mike Moraschi, Matt Campbell, George Villanueva, Nico Grilli, Dylan Odud and Bryan Lafferty!" As an aside, the meet director noted that were more than 1,100 male and female athletes registered to compete in the Mile in the two-day event! The boys' miles took over four hours to complete! Just sayin'.
Coach Kramer thought things went well for the Sprinters, Jumpers and Throwers too! In the 55m Dash, sprinter Will Delendik ran another sub-7 second race in his last tune up before Sectionals, and he returned in the 200m to lead the team with a 23.64 clocking! Also in the 200m Dash, Tre Cabbagestalk ran an indoor PR of 24.74, and Tyler Ortiz and Andrew Elsey both ran well in their heats!
In the Jumps, Andrew Elsey tied his indoor PR of 5' 10" in the High Jump and, most importantly, he was clean all the way through; and Zach Pafly cleared 17' 1.5" in the Long Jump and set an indoor PR!
The Throwers also had a really nice day! Chika Omeronye started the day for the Chiefs with a huge 4' PR, throwing 32' 4.25"! Phil Quipot also hit a PR with a throw of 29' 9.5"; and Luch Pizarro had an indoor PR of 50' 9" and finished 3rd in the event! Finally, Darien Massimino had a good day throwing just a few inches short of his indoor PR!
Official Details at: Ocean Breeze.
On January 29th, 2019, Cherokee continued their 10th Annual Throw Down Series hosting Cherokee Throw Down # 2, the second of three Shot Put meets this season. While the meet was progressing, Coach Kramer mentioned several PR performances and, after the meet he said, "The throwers had an amazing day! First off, Freshman Adam Lopez had a 4' PR with a throw of 27' 8.5"; and then Jack Haron followed with his 2' PR with a throw of 28' 11"! Chika Omeronye continued his great season with a PR in his 4th straight meet, throwing 32" 6.5"; and Max Fisher had a 2' PR with a throw of 32' 8"! Finally, Darien Massimino threw a PR of 35' 10.25" to finish 2nd in the JV division! The guys did great and are finishing the indoor season really strong!"
Official results at: NJ.MileSplit.
Our photographer worked the meet and, to address the lighting problems, he tried several new settings with two cameras but his results are "less than stellar." In the future, he promises to stick to the old techniques, dismal as they were! That said, here are few of his efforts!
On January 29th, 2019, while the Throwers competed back at school in the Cherokee Throws Meet # 2, another part of the team traveled to The Bubble in Toms River for the SJTCA Meet # 10. The idea here was two-fold: (1) to allow those racing this Saturday in the SJ Sectional Championships to sharpen, and (2) to allow some young guys to get on the track and race!
Distance guys "sharpened" well! Though he slipped at the start, Bobby Hackney ran a decent 400m in 56.9! Ethan Wechsler clocked a nice 800m in 2:00.6, and both Chase Miller and Nico Grilli followed with respectable 2:07's and 2:08's! In the 3200m race, Dylan Odud, running his first at the distance, crossed the line in 10:11, and Mike Gavio followed in 10:16. Both decent times!
Coach Petruzzi was impressed by Tyler Jackson's PR of 52.47 in the 400m Dash! But he was also pleased to see Joey Carroll in his season debut of 9.38 in the 55m High Hurdles! He also mentioned Adam Kromish: he took a fall in warmups but got it together and ran a 10.55 in his first hurdle race! In addition, Chima Opara, Trevor Tubb and Harshit Chirapally had the opportunity to race the 55m Dash for the first time this year . . . all good stuff!
Our photographer was unavailable for this meet. Official results are at NJ.MileSplit