Mainland boys team is very young this season with no senior class runners
OCEAN CITY — The top runner is gone from the Ocean City High School boys cross country team, but seven of the other eight top runners are back hoping to defend their South Jersey sectional title.
The boys have started strong this season with three wins in home dual meets, first beating Egg Harbor Township 15-50 with Raider runners taking the first seven spots and then going a bit farther last week against small Mainland Mustang and St. Augustine Prep teams, taking the top nine spots and winning both of those meets 15-50 as well.
(In cross country scoring, each team gets the points of their finishers — 1 point for first, 2 points for second, etc. — with the low cumulative score the winner.)
Head coach Matt Purdue said he doesn’t encourage his runners to beat each other while racing in dual meets. Most of them run in a pack, which was evident last week when the five top runners were together as they headed south on the Ocean City boardwalk after their time on city streets and beaches.
In that meet, Ethan Buck and Erik Preisner both clocked in at 17 minutes and 52 seconds, Keenan Neuman and Nathan Aschmann were timed at 17:53 and Mike Romano at 17:57.
After than, Kevin Millstein finished in 18:08, Matt Bell at 18:54, Gavin Mattine at 19:32 and Hayden Tarves at 20:19.
The week before against EHT, Buck and Preisner finished in 17:25, followed by Neuman at 17:27, Aschmann at 17:54, Romano, Millstein at 17:58 and Kal Heyman at 18:02. Zach Hutchinson was ninth at 18:30.
Lost to graduation was Matt Hoffman, an outstanding runner during his time at OCHS and leader in both cross country and track, but the Raiders have plenty of horsepower.
“We have a good senior crew and we have seven of our eight varsity runners back from last year,” Purdue said. “Matt graduated, but six of the seven guys who won sectionals last year are back.”
A team has seven varsity runners in a race and the eighth, he explained, is the standby who trains with them for state meets in case another runner can’t compete.
Buck, Preisner, Heyman, Neuman, Aschmann and Hutchinson were on the South Jersey sectional championship team with Romano as the eighth man.
“We do have a good core back. We have big goals for the season,” Purdue said. “We’re hoping to win the county, the CAL (Cape-Atlantic League), the South Jersey (sectional) and be competitive going after the state title.”
He said the races so far have been team efforts.
“We don’t encourage the guys to beat each other in a dual meet when they’re side by side,” he said. There will be time for that come the end of September at the Carlisle Invitational and Shore Coaches Invitational with official chip timing when the boys will face much larger fields of competitors.
Young Mustangs
The Mainland Mustang boys cross country team beat St. Augustine Prep 27-28 at last week’s dual meet with Ocean City and the Prep, but will be contending with small numbers this season.
“We’re a young team. We have zero seniors,” head coach Dan Heyman said. “One of our top juniors transferred to Atlantic City so we lost our number one runner this year, but it’s OK because it makes all the other guys stronger and helps them to step up.
“Right now we’re being led by a junior, Justin Yon, and a couple sophomores, Mark Wurzer and Luigi Batioja. They’re our top three right now and they’ve been solid for us. Even last year they were in our top five so that’s what we’re building around but we’re super young.”
Other boys on the squad include Jove Navis, Cody Care, Wesley Leap, Max Brough, Geoffrey Lovett, Tyler Cavacini, Max Till and Arindom Paul.
“We’re 2-2 now and that’s about all I can ask for. We lost one meet by a point but we won one by a point today so we deserve to be 2-2. I can’t complain about losing by a point if we win by one,” he said.
“We’re a project in development and hope to get better by the end of the season.”
There about 12 members on the squad when ideally the coach would like about 18 to 20.
“You usually assume four to five kids a class, so we’d be at a good number,” he said, if they had a senior class represented on the team. “It just is what it is. We try to get people out, but right now we’re just a small young squad.”
Talking about goals, he said, “normally we’d say let’s look at the state meet or qualifying, but we’re just looking to get better each week and these dual meets are good for developing a team like that. Each Tuesday we’re going to try to do as best we can and if we get on a roll and get a solid five we’ll hopefully place in the top five at the county meet and in the top five at sectionals. If we get good enough and if starts to break out, we might be able to do it.”
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
