On Wednesday, April 16, 2025, the team welcomed Eastern Regional High School for our 3rd Dual Meet of the season and sent them home as losers with a score of 90-50!
Coach Misuraco sent the following remarks on the meet.
"Against Eastern, a whipping tailwind saw our 100m runners reel off some very impressive times! Davis Walker nearly cracked the school record of 10.84 by Kevin Merrigan'07 and William Rapp '09 with a hand-timed 10.7 (10.94 conversion)!
"Coach Shaklee recalled a similar tailwind when Kevin Merrigan set the mark with a converted 10.84 in 2007, so we're excited to watch Davis continue to improve and chase that number over the next three years! He also took home 1st in the 200m with a season best time of 22.1. All in a day's work for the freshman! Not to be too far outdone, Evan Bryfogle (Sr - 11.3 / 23.1) and Mateo Rosario (Jr - 11.4 / 23.1) rounded out our top three in both events on a day where many sprinters ran very strong times for themselves!
"In the 400IH, Liam McCloskey took 1st with a time of 61.6 to continue his point streak, and, in the 110H, Connor Staff (So - 17.5) ran his best race of the season to earn his first varsity points with a 2rd place finish!
"It was an odd day numerically for the Jumpers, who were heading into the wind for the most part. Still, Calderon, Walker and Xiangrong Yue (So.) swept the High Jump; Horwath and Cecchetto took 1st and 3rd in Pole Vault; Calderon took 2nd in both the Long and Triple Jump, while Yue took 3rd in the Triple Jump.
We were really happy with the attitude these guys showed. On a day when it would have been easy to be frustrated with conditions for their events, they took on the challenge and understood the goal was just to compete with and outscore athletes from Eastern to help the team win - not necessarily to hit a PR for themselves. The way they reframed the events for themselves paid dividends on the score sheet and is going to continue to push them in the right direction.
Coach Shaklee sent the following:
"In our second dual meet of the week, the team beat Eastern High School 90-50. The distance squad pulled its weight, scoring 24 of 27 points in the three distance events and five more points in the 400, as well as contributing two legs to the winning 4 x 400 squad!
"In the 1600, running strictly for the points, Liam Tindall, Sean Sooy and Jack Tindall stayed patient before moving to the lead with 500 meters to go and pulling away for the 1-2-3 sweep. Jack Finley was not far behind, running his fastest 1600 ever on a very windy day!
"Tate Midora and Dom Pileri ran the 400 with Tate winning and Dom just missing out on points in fourth place.
"Enzo Corona and Bruce Novoa were our entrants in the 800 and they took first and third, while Max Harada, Ben Weiner and Anthony DiBattista ran a threshold workout through the 3200 and got the 1-2-3 sweep with Eastern electing to not enter competitors".
No report on the Throwers yet.
The meet results were not reported to NJ.MileSplit
Our photographer was unavailable for the meet.
On Saturday, April 19, 2025, the team traveled to Penn Wood High School in Yeadon, PA (where?) for the Penn Wood Rap Curry Invitational.
Coach Shaklee sent the following on the meet.
"On Saturday, the team traveled to Yeadon, PA for the Penn Wood Rap Curry Invitational.
"The 4 X 800 team of Matt Muschek, Evan Amato, Leo Vyvyan and Liam Daimler placed 9th in the field of 14 teams. The highlight was Leo Vyvyan on the third leg where he ran a 3-second PR and passed several teams in the process!
"In the Novice 1600, Trayce Slumsky and Dylan Weiner finished 6th and 9th in a very crowded field of 30. Trayce set a new PR in the process!
"Liam Daimler and Matt Muschek doubled back from the 4 X 800m Relay to the Open 800 and both improved on their times from the relay!
"Finally, in the Varsity 1600, Gavin Danielewicz (or Daniel-whiskey, as the announcer referred to him) placed 2nd in his heat and 8th overall with a big 7-second PR! Leo Vyvyan, doubling back from the Relay, still managed to set his own PR in 17th place in the field of 36 runners!"
Details on the meet are posted at: PA.MileSplit.
Our photographer was unavailable for the meet.
On Wednesday, April 23, 2025, the team hosted the FAT Wednesday at the high school! Essentially, it's an all-comers meet for athletes to show how they've improved or to practice for the next dual meet.
Cherokee athletes can be seen throughout the meet
100m Dash Lance Cheng, 10th GR, 34th/57 overall, 12.02
100m Dash Nemon Shanchez, 11th GR, 43rd/57 overall, 12.34
100m Dash Jack Coburn, 10th GR, 50th/57 overall, 12.91
100m Dash Jaxson Sharkey, 10th GR, 53rd/57 overall, 13.17
200m Dash Lance Cheng, 10th GR, 36th/50 overall, 24.89
200m Dash Jack Coburn, 10th GR, 46th/50 overall, 26.33
200m Dash Jaxson Sharkey, 10th GR, 49th/50 overall, 27.33
400m Dash Luke Ehly, 11th GR, 18th/35 overall, 56.24
400m Dash Lucas Buanchi, 10th GR, 28th/35 overall, 60.29
110 HH Christian Danquah, 19th GR, 16th/19 overall, 18.94
Further details at: NJ.MileSplit.com.
Our photographer was unavailable for this meet.
On Thursday thru Saturday, April 24th - 26th, 2025, The University of Pennsylvania will sponsor The 129th Penn Relays Carnival, a 3-day weekend of Track and Field events, and thousands of athletes, that can be the highlight of anyone's Track season; and, if you win something, a memory you'll cherish for the rest of your life!
Typically, the Meet Director admits two South Jersey teams that meet the qualifying standards he sets and, this year, both Cherokee's 4 X 100m Relay Team and the 4 X 400m Relay Team qualified. Other teams can qualify earlier in the season and race at The Relays but, this year, the coaches chose to focus on the NJ State meets at the end of the season.
Repeating from last year so the details won't be lost, Coach Shaklee remembers the days when he ran there in high school and college and, later as Head Coach or Assistant Coach since 1998, he remembers taking his athletes there! His ancient memories and our website offer a "history of Cherokee's boys at the Penn Relays" and he used them to review the performances of his boys at: Penn!
This year, the 4 X 100m Relay Team of Evan Bryfogle, Colin Feehan, Matteo Rosario and Sam Green carried Cherokee's baton in 44.17; and the 4 X 400m Relay Team of Mateo Rosario (54.04), Colin Feehan (56.84), Dom Pileri (53.49) and Tate Midora (52.57) carried it in 3:36.92.
Excellent results available at: Penn Relays OnLine.
Our photographer was unavailable but Coach Shaklee stepped in with his trusty iPhone! He needs some photo practice but here are his much appreciated but heavily edited efforts to catch Cherokee's two relay teams before they went into action:
On Saturday, April 26th, 2025, after years of volunteering has services at The Penn Relay Carnival, Coach Shaklee was recognized as an Honorary Referee! That includes an honory baton, an "All Access" Pass, and the almost sacred Yellow hat! All of that will buy him open access to the entire facility and free lunches and dinners but won't get better starting positions for any of his athletes!
Below, the Coach is seen with New Jersey's "other" newspaper and online reporter for high school Track and Field Sports, Jim Lambert. The # 1 SJ reporter is Reuben Frank who reports online at SJ Track Blog.
On Wednesday, April 28th, 2025, the team traveled to Rancocas Vallry Regional High School for their fourth Dual Meet of the season and came home defeated!
As always with defeats, reports from the coaches are often delayed, what with the teary eyes and all, but Coach Shaklee passed along his remarks in a few days.
Coach Shaklee: "Before the Rancocas Valley meet, the determination was made (and proved correct) that we could not win our final dual meet so we held out the top distance runners on Monday, April 30th at RV. In the 1600, Liam Daimler and Gavin Danielewicz ran to second and third place finishes to score a few points for the team.
"While we did not score points in the 800, the results were positive none-the-less with 10 of the 11 Cherokee runners in the race setting personal records, highlighted by the sub 2:10 clockings recorded by sophomore, Matt Muschek (2:09.5), and freshman, Evan Amato (2:09.8). In the 4 x 400s at the end of the meet, Gavin Danielewicz, Evan Amato, Dylan Weiner, Shane Jacob, Sam Wright and Nick Carpineto all set new PRs!"
Alas, haven't hear anything from the other coaches! Results not posted at MileSplit.
Most of our photographer's difficulties and tears came from the sun! Some of his pictures are posted below while they and others are at our Google site. Enjoy! BTW, did you thank him for his efforts?
The "Elite Meet" is, as the name suggests, a qualifying meet open to all SJ athletes who meet the standards set by the SJ Coaches Association. All but one of Cherokee's qualifiers were distance athletes and Coach Shaklee sent the following report!
"On a breezy Friday evening at Delsea Regional High School, nine Cherokee athletes competed in the SJ Elite Meet.
"First up was the 1600 Meter Run with Logan Bromley, Ben Realley, Liam Tindall and Enzo Corona representing Cherokee. After a moderate first lap, the pace slowed and the field was tightly bunched with 800 to go. On the backstretch of the 3rd lap, Logan Bromley moved to the lead and began a long push to the finish which strung out the field. Only Delsea's start miler, Matthew Littlehales, stayed with Logan. Despite the fact that Littlehales came in with a 4:09 PR, 12 seconds better than Logan's, Logan held him off until the final 100 meters, finishing second with a new PR of 4:18.34, putting him at number 10 on the All-Time Cherokee list! Behind Logan, Ben Realley and Liam Tindall were setting new PR's of their own, finishing in 4th and 6th respectively! Only Enzo, who came into the meet less than 100% healthy, with a serious sinus infection, failed to PR.
"In the 800 Meter 'Dash', Tate Midora and Dom Pileri were the Cherokee entrants. Dom was the final athlete to qualify for the meet and, in heat 1, he came in with the slowest seed time. Instead of hanging back, Dom came through the first lap in the middle of the field and then surged to the front, briefly taking the lead in the final 200 and finishing a close 2nd with a four-second PR of 1:59.66! SUB-TWO! YAAA! In the second (seeded) heat, Tate Midora, who came in with a PR of 2:00.43, was also looking to break 2:00 for the first time. He came through the first lap with the pack in sixth and ran a very strong second lap to finish in third place with a BIG PR of 1:57.13! WOW!
______________Editor's remarks. The "Mano y Mano 100m Finish" It happens, but not often, when two athletes of opposing teams find themselves coming off the final turn side-by-side, forced into one of the most glorious and terrifying races of their lives! One hundred meters of gut-busting physical and mental trama . . . they've already raced 300m, or 700m, 1500m or 3100m . . . they're exhausted but they plan to win the race . . . all they need do is break this kid beside who plans to win too! Both athletes surge, the stress marks their faces, they look for every little sign that the kid beside them is faltering . . . please . . . 75 meters . . . 50 meters . . . they both continue, "Mano y Mano" . . . inside, they're screaming just like the crowd in the stands . . . they feel a crippling exhaustion, their legs tighten and their chests heave, they're hurting like never before but they push ahead . . . the finish is just there . . .. Technically, there's a loser, the clock and Cal say so, but there are no real loosers in this incredible contest! Two MEN . . . Mano y Mano will race again . . . and we'll love every second of it! Thanks Dom!
_______________"Sean Sooy, Max Harada and Ben Weiner were all in the 3200 Meter Run. The wind, which usually drops later in the evening, failed to do so which certainly affected the times and led to a very tactical race with the entire field bunched up at the 1600 in around 5:00. When the top seed went to the lead with two laps to go and injected some pace into the race, Sean Sooy naturally reacted and moved into second. He held that position until the backstretch of the final lap when a few athletes got by him as he finished in 5th place. Max Harada continued to impress as he still managed another new PR, despite the wind, dropping nine seconds from his time at the Cherokee Night of 3200s and dipping under 9:50, to place 11th. Max's improvement in one year has been dramatic. Last year, his 1600 PR was 5:20. He is now averaging under 4:55 for two 1600s in a row! Ben Weiner did not have his best race but still worked hard to the finish, passing three runners in the last lap."
In an extremely challenging 100m Dash, with strong winds blowing directly in their faces, our lone qualifier. Evan Bryfogle failed to advance to the finals. He finished 19th/23 overall in 11.57.
Details: Results at: NJ.MileSplit.
Our photographer and MileSplit's professional pohotographer, Tom Smith, took pictures at the meet. Here are some of both photographers and these and others are posted on our Google site.
"On Friday, May 2, 2025, Freshman, Jack Tindall, took the long trip up to Randall's Island in NYC to race in the Trials of Miles against a strong field of athletes. Coming off a long and difficult training block, Jack was feeling a little flat and was unable to shake that during his warm-up. As a result, he ran with his usual focus and intensity but the time was not what he was hoping for. Still, it was a chance to compete at a high level and he will work on resting and freshening up as we move into the Championship season. His time of 4:23.14 is equal to about a 4:21.6 in the 1600." Details at: NJ.MileSplit.
Our photographer was unavailable but Dingle of NY.MileSplit took some of Jack. We understand Jack refused the dull blue supplied uniforms in favor of his usual carrot-top splendor!
"On Wednesday, May 7, 2025, Shak disappeared! No kidding. Last he was seen was at the Philadelphia Airport, wearing some kind of crazy black outfit and standing in the line to Rome, Italy!
"Conclave?" That some kind of European Track Meet?
Picture sent to us by our representatives in Rome, dated May 8, 2025. Is this Shak!?
Recent events in Rome suggest that Shak may have been in Rome afterall. Shak may actually know the new Pope! While the Pope, then known as "Pre," after his name Bob Prevost and suggesting a connection with the great runner, Steve Prefontain, who died in '75, was at Villanova studying but not on the track team, Shak was at Drexel running on the Track team but not studying. Both treated Belmont Plateau as one would treat a holy place.
Others say all of this is "hoo-wee" made up by a tired and broken old man who has nothing to do while track meets rage all around him!