Mid-April to Mid-May: a curiously wet and cold early April but we can look forward to the warmpth of May, some early weekend meets and the up-coming championships! GO CHEROKEE!
On April 16, 2022, Cherokee hosted their incorrectly-named "Fast Times at Cherokee High," a somewhat specialized meet that focused on Sprints but included Jumps and Throws and the 1600m . . .! It seemed more like the Penn Relays with 50+ heats of the 100m Dash, 48 heats of the 200m Dash, 12 heats of the 1600m, and uncounted flights in the Jumps and Throws! . . . "Fast Times?"
While lots of good things happened at the meet, the most impressive news following it was the acceptance of the 4 X 800 Relay Team to the incredible Penn Relays in a few weeks! GO CHEROKEE!
Coach Shaklee sent the following report on his distance guys:
"Two days after Cherokee's 'Night of 3200s,' we only had a few distance guys running at the Fast Times at Cherokee High School Meet. Although not completely healthy, the guys wanted to take one last shot at getting a Penn Relays qualifier in the 4x800 Meter Relay. Even without Patrick Ditmars and Tommy Bromley, we felt we had the depth to make it happen with the line-up of Nick Kuenkel (just back from illness), Lucas Hatch, Bobby Poplau and Conor Jacob (not 100% but ready to give it his best). Fortunately, Pennsauken High School had their best guys in it which gave us some competition (in fact they finished in front of us)!
"Nick handed off in the lead which Lucas maintained with a new PR! Bobby also PR'd on the 3rd leg and Conor, running sick, managed to hold it together to give us an 8:07 finish time and a PENN QUALIFIER!
"The JV 4 x 800 of Kevin Hess, Josh Pawlik, Evan Pawlik and Andrew Free then made short work of the field, winning by a large margin!
"Joe Natoli set a new PR in the 1600 despite over-running the first lap and having to fight the wind for the next three!"
Below is a sampling of pictures from the meet. They and others are posted on the District's Google site!
Official details at: NJ.MileSplit.
On April 22, 2022, a small contingent of young athletes traveled to Bishop Eustace's Crusader Frosh/Novice Invitational and performed quite well! Coach Shaklee sent the following notes on his runners:
"Cherokee sent eight distance runners to Bishop Eustace on Friday, April 22nd. Seven of the eight set new personal records and the one who didn't was close despite just returning from illness!
"In the Freshman 1600, Ben Weiner and Zach Ciabattoni placed 5th and 6th with Ben beating his previous best by over ten seconds! Zach, who recently missed time due to illness, still managed to come within a second of his best time! In addition, Tyler Newton knocked six seconds off of his previous best while Rocco Clifford debuted in the event and showed he can run even faster based on his strong sprint finish!
"Julian Hatch led the Cherokee contingent in the Novice 1600, placing 6th and knocking 18 seconds off of his previous best time! Behind him, Silas Matteson took 15 seconds off of his PR and looked strong all the way through! Shawon Sarker and Myron Paes took 9 seconds and 4 seconds respectively off of their previous bests!"
Our photographer had a previous engagement and, after shooting the first three races of the day, he left before the last two races. Apologies to the team scheduled to compete in the 4 X 200m Relay. He'll catch you at a later meet!
The pictures below and others available on the District's Google Site.
Our photographer thanks Liam Tindall for his help at the meet!
Details at: NJ.MileSplit.
On April 23, 2022, the Varsity team traveled north to Westfield, NJ for the Blue Devil Classic and most came home very happy!
Coach Shaklee sent the following report:
"A day after the younger distance runners raced at Bishop Eustace, a Varsity contingent of distance runners went into action at Westfield High School's" Blue Devil Classic." Finally a day with little to no wind meant that the boys could potentially lay down some good times. With several runners returning from illness, we knew that we were not quite 100% ready but the talent of this group gave us confidence that they would get the job done!
"In the first distance event, the Jack Martin Invitational Mile, all four athletes ran well! Despite never really getting comfortable and into the flow of the race, Patrick Ditmars still managed a very nice 4:21.36 for fourth place in a very strong field! That converts to a 4:19.84 for 1600m which puts Patrick very close to his PR from last spring! Bradley Popler, Joe Natoli and Andrew Free all dropped their previous PR's substantially as well!
"Next up for the distance squad was the 800 Meter Run which was a last chance to see where everyone was in their comeback from illness before Penn. Unfortunately, of the five athletes we needed to see, only four could run the 800, so Bobby Poplau was moved to the lead-off of the 4 x 800m Relay The four who ran the 800 - Conor Jacob, Nick Kuenkel, Tommy Bromley and Lucas Hatch - all ran well and dominated the event, taking four of the first five spots, with Conor taking the victory in 1:59.43, and Nick (1:59.83), Tommy (2:00.22) and Lucas (2:01.26), all set PR's finishing third, fourth and fifth!
"In the 4 x 800 Meter Relay, Bobby Poplau ran a terrific lead-off, splitting 1:58.7, handing off in first place! Josh Pawlik, Evan Pawlik and Nimai Kumar ran the three remaining legs to finish in fourth place!
"Ben Hackney, also returning from time-out due to illness, ran in the 3200 Meter event and competed very well! His final time of 10:26.32 is not far off of his best from last spring! As he gets more training behind him, he should top his 10:23 PR by a sizable amount later this spring!
"Nick Kuenkel came back from the 800m in the Open 400m to set a new PR of 53.84! The other 800 guys all ran in the 4 x 400 with impressive results. On the A-team, Lucas Hatch (52.9), Conor Jacob (52.8), Bobby Poplau (53.4) and Patrick Ditmars (52.2) set a season's best 3:31.35 to take fourth place! The B-team of Josh Pawlik (54.8), Evan Pawlik (55.7), Jack Couture (55.6) and Tommy Bromley (53.3) ran an impressive sub 3:40 final time! Clearly the middle distance area is a strength of our track team!
"Next up, The Penn Relays!"
Reports on Sprints, Jumps and Throws expected soon but, just skimming over the Field results, there were some impressive performances! For example, in the Shot, Zach Ott put a two-foot PR with 37' 8.5"! In the Javelin, Holden Wolfert continued the improvement he has shown every meet this month by throwing a new PR of 144' 03" (17' since April 3rd) and taking 4th! In the Discus, Dan Mondile threw an eight-foot PR of 125' 07" and took 5th, while Brody Worfert continued the improvement he has shown every meet this month by throwing another PR of 110' 0" (about 30' since April 3rd!)! In the High Jump, both Ryan Green and Freshman Samuel Green looked good: Ryan matched his PR of 5' 10" and Sam set his first PR at 5' 4"!
Check out the article written by Reuben Frank where he reported on Cherokee's outstanding 800m runners in his blog, SJ Track Blog: From the Backstretch and his article, "Four Cherokee half-milers tune up for Penn by running between 1:59 and 2:01 at Blue Devil Relays!!!!!," (five exclamation points, mama!) is copied on our server at Frank's Blog.
Official details at: NJ.MileSplit.
Here are a few pictures from the meet. (The last four are from John Jones, NJ.com.) These and others are now posted on the District's Google site. Photo favorites: athletes prep for competition; that arm in Nick's face (is that guy pinching his nose?); four posed distance runners where the photographer took seven shots hoping to get just one where all the guys had their eyes open!
On April 28 - 30, 2022, the University of Pennsylvania hosted the 126th running of the Penn Relays Carnival; and Carnival is an apt name for these three days of controlled chaos! Think about it: runners, jumpers, hurdlers, throwers, vaulters . . . 325 separate events and almost 500 total races and field competitions!
This year, Cherokee sent three teams: the 4 x 800m team of Conor Jacob, Bobby Poplau, Nick Kuenkel and Patrick Ditmars; the 4 X 100m team of Wilson Leung, Wesley Davenport, Cameron Burti and Ryan Bender; and the 4 X 400m team of Lucas Hatch, Kevin Hess, Josh Pawlik and Tommy Bromley!
Coach Shaklee sent the following comments on the meet!
"The 4 x 800 team came into Penn with a seed time that put them 40th out of the 71 accepted teams. Knowing we could run faster than our seed time, we planned on beating many teams ahead of us and, with a really good race, qualifying for the Championship of America. While we did improve on our seed - 1 second faster and 21 places higher (finished 19th) - we came away somewhat disappointed. It was cold and blustery for the early-morning 4 x 8 heats and no teams were running very fast. We were one of very few teams that actually exceeded our seed time (if not by much). Conor Jacob had an off race on the lead-off leg but held it together as best he could and gave the baton to Bobby Poplau mid-pack. Bobby ran a solid second leg to move us up a bit and gave the baton to Nick Kuenkel who went out aggressively to close the gap on a few teams ahead of him. The early pace caught up to Nick and he had to work to hold it together over the final 300. Patrick Ditmars anchored with a steady race (run a little too conservatively) to bring us home in 4th place in 8:06.16. Interestingly, had we run less than two seconds faster, we would have made the Championship, which left us feeling disappointed and hungry to do better as we move into the championship season.
"The 4 x 100 team of Wilson Leung, Wesley Davenport, Cam Burti and Ryan Bender ran their fastest race of the year so far to place 2nd in their heat and 16th in their division out of 116 teams!
"On Saturday, The 4 x 400 team of Lucas Hatch, Kevin Hess, Josh Pawlik and Tommy Bromley ran our fastest 4 x 400 of the year so far to take 7th in the SJ Large School Division race! All four guys ran well with Josh and Tommy setting new PR's on the anchor!"
There's an insane amount of details available at: Penn Schedule/Results and at PA.MileSplit.
Our photographer was unavailable for Penn this year so he asked Coach Shaklee to take a picture of his 4 x 800 team at some bold, conspicuous location that would remind them of their first race at the famous Penn Relays. Whadda ya think? Note the close-up of his subjects! Note how he caught the faces of all team members! Note the "bold, conspicuous" Porta-A-Pots in the background that just scream "Penn Relays?!" Whadda ya think . . . stick to coaching?
Our photographer searched the insane number of pictures available at MileSplit, etc. and came up with pictures of the complete 4 x 800, one exchange of the 4 X 100, and NO pictures of the 4 X 400! If you have any pictures that you would like to share with our website, please send them along to RunningWorksPics@aol.com. High resolution is really helpful!
Videos are also available at MileSplit. The 4 x 800m video is at: MileSplit. Please send other web links if you can find them!
Our photographer saved twenty-eight low-resolution pictures, ten of which are of Patrick (his Uncle Sugar was there?)! Here are a few copied/edited from MileSplit. These and others are posted on the District's Google site.
On May 2, 2022, Cherokee hosted the second dual meet of the season, this time against District rival, Lenape Regional High School, and registered a second victory!
Our photographer made the decision to "focus" on the often-missed Throws team this meet!
But first the details from the Distance Coach, Assistant Coach Shaklee:
"The distance runners had a good day against rival Lenape High School. With the weather cooperating (light wind and warm), many points were scored and many personal records were set!
"In the first distance event, the 1600 meter run, Nick Kuenkel, Bobby Poplau and Bradley Popler worked together, each sharing the lead for a lap before racing over the last 400. All three finished with new PR's and took places one through three! Joe Natoli was right behind them, tying the PR he set at the Blue Devil Classic! Other PR's were recorded by Julian Hatch, Anthony DiBatista, Zach Ciabattoni and Silas Matteson!
"Nick, Bobby, Bradley and Joe came right back in the next event, the 400 meter. Although, no PR's were set, they got a good anaerobic workout in with the quick double.
"In the 800 meter, Patrick Ditmars took it out and Tommy Bromley went with him. They both held up well off the aggressive pace and both set new PR's while finishing 1st and 2nd, with Tommy going under 2:00 for the first time! Others setting new PR's were Enzo Corona, Shawon Sarker, Myron Paes, Rocco Clifford and Tyler Newton!
"Conor Jacob won the 3200 meter in only his second attempt at the event! Running unpressed, he led from start to finish and beat his old PR by 20 seconds! Ben Hackney ran well (just off his PR) to get 3rd. Liam Tindall also set a new PR despite only recently returning from time off due to injury!
"In the 4 x 400 meter relay, Patrick and Tommy helped the Varsity team to a victory and, in the "distance runners 4 x 4", seven athletes came away with new 400 bests - Julian Hatch, Enzo Corona, Anthony DiBatista, Brett Yagiello, Rocco Clifford, Myron Paes and Shawon Sarker.
"All in all, a nice showing by the team's Distance squad: 23 out of a possible 27 of the "traditional" distance points, and a "bump" for the help in the relay!"
Head Coach Hoffman stepped in to highlight several performances by others on the team. Among the Throwers, he focused on "first year Senior Holden Wolfert's PR's in the Javelin (149' 9") and Shot Put (40' 6") to take 1st in Javelin and 2nd in Shot; and Senior Dan Mondile's PR in Shot Put to take 1st with a throw of 43' 11.75"!" He went on to praise the performance of Freshman Azariah Cooper who "posted a huge PR of 40' 01" in the Triple Jump and took 1st . . . a Freshman!" Finally, he went on to mention the 8 points picked up by Evan Aronow and Jack Couture in the Pole Vault; and to stress what he thought was "the great all-around performance of first year Junior Cam Burti as he took 1st in the High Jump, and posted PR's in the 100m (11.4) and 200 (23.7), earning 6.5 points for the team!"
Since we focused on the Throws events this meet, they too scored some big points for the team: 21 out of a possible 27 points!
Final Score: Cherokee 81.5 . . . Lenape 57.5
DUAL MEET SEASONAL RECORD: 2 - 0! GO CHEROKEE!
The photographer thanks the unknown Weight man who helped him on the hill -- from now on to be called "The Matterhorn" -- during the meet!
Additional pictures added later! Here is a sampling of Throws and High Jump pictures from the meet. They and many others, including the 4 X 400m Relay, are posted on the District's Google site. Separately, a large version of the team photo is available at: Google site.
