LOGAN TOWNSHIP – The Ocean City High School boys and Mainland Regional High School girls teams each took second place at the South Jersey Group III Cross Country sectionals Saturday at Dream Park in Logan Township.
The Mustang girls were a scant 3 points out of first place, scoring 73 points overall and led by freshman Sofia Day, who placed fourth individually with a time of 18:35.89.
Highland Regional junior Grace Wassell won the race in 18:05.24, followed by Clearview Regional junior Abigail Waddington with a time of 18:08.19.
Waddington was the fastest among her Pioneer teammates, who also finished seventh, ninth, 14th and 38th to take the team title with 70 points.
Toms River South junior Lilly Oliver was third overall in 18:16.87.
Mainland’s girls finished sixth, 19th, 21st and 23rd to take second in the team standings.
Mustang sophomore Gillian Lovett was sixth in 19:22.32, followed by sophomore Claudia Booth (20:51.13), 19th; senior Lily Malone (20:58.99), 21st; and sophomore Chloe Malone (21:04.39), 23rd. In non-scoring positions, Mainland freshman Ava McDole (22:00.20) was 30th and junior Sydney Luff (22.38.11) was 33rd.
Highland Regional also scored 73 points, but finished third because the team’s average time was 20:17 while Mainland’s average time was 20:10.
The Ocean City girls team finished fourth overall with 87 points.
Scoring for the Red Raiders were freshman Chloe Care (20:30.04), 12th; junior Grace McAfee (20:42.41), 15th; junior Olivia Palmieri (20:45.84), 16th; junior Cheryl Connell (20:55.46), 20th; and sophomore Frankie Ritzel (21:05.66), 24th. Ocean City runners senior Abby Inserra (21:47.24) was 28th and sophomore Marissa Vallese (22:40.93) was 34th.
Ritti, Wineland battle it out again
Ocean City’s Owen Ritti and Mainland’s Linden Wineland were battling each other as they finished third and fourth, respectively, in the South Jersey Group III sectional race.
A week earlier, Wineland topped Ritti at the Cape-Atlantic League Cross Country Championships at Stockton University, although Ocean City won the team title and the Mustangs finished second. They are the respective county champions.
On Saturday at Dream Park, Ritti finished in 16:08.67 and Wineland, also a senior, had a time of 16:18.67.
Neither one came close to the top two individual finishers.
Dennis Fortuna, a senior at Triton Regional High School, won the race in a time of 15:09.35, and Andrew Littlehales, a senior at Delsea Regional, was second in 15:38.18.
Fortuna led Triton to the team title with 62 points with finishers also at the sixth, 12th, 19th and 24th positions.
Ocean City was second with 78 points, Highland was third with 85 and Mainland finished fourth with 104.
For Ocean City, in addition to Ritti, scorers were junior Nick Scarangelli (16:31.96), ninth; senior Nigel Collins (17:06.95), 17th; junior Chris Sardy (17:08.24), 18th; and sophomore Matt Hoffman (17:33.73), 31st. Red Raider finishers also included junior Colin Abbott (17:43.02), 32nd; and senior Reece Wagner (17:50.15), 34th.
For Mainland, other scorers behind Wineland were junior Elliot Post (16:29.74), eighth; senior Vaughn Blanchett (17:15.04), 22nd; sophomore Ethan Mitnick (17:20.51), 25th; and sophomore Ethan Bongiovanni (18:28.38), 45th. Also finishing for the Mustangs were sophomore Micah Miller (19:25.68), 63rd; and sophomore John Gaffney (19:40.97), 65th.
Next up are the state championships at Holmdel this weekend.