Red Raiders take first place in every event to dominate the competition
OCEAN CITY – The Ocean City High School boys team dominated the 2023 Cape May County Track and Field Championships May 18, winning every event and taking a host of second and third places.
The Red Raiders, under head coach Matt Purdue, finished with 217 points. Middle Township was second with 58.5, Lower Cape May Regional third with 50.5 and Wildwood fourth with 22.
Sophomore Hercules Stewart was a double winner, taking the triple jump with a leap of 40’5.75” and the high jump by clearing 5’8”.
Ocean City junior Walter Holmes (38’2.5”) and sophomore John Paul Forster (37’5.25”) were third and fourth in the triple jump and junior Talon Fischer (5’6”) and Forster (5’4”) were second and tied for third in the high jump.
Stewart was second in the long jump, going 19’2.25”, behind junior teammate Zion Hamilton, who won the event with a leap of 19’11”.
Junior Nick Layton also was a double winner. He won the javelin with a throw of 153’4” and teammate Anthony DeRose, a sophomore, was fourth at 125’9”.
Layton won the pole vault as well, clearing 10’6”. Juniors Aiden Leypoldt (9’) and Niko Dounoulis (8’) were fourth and fifth.
Colin Dice, a senior, won the discus with a throw of 146’ and Luke Smith, his sophomore teammate, was second at 136’.
Sophomore Grady Hanson won the shot put with his toss of 42’10”. Teammates Clifford Dirkes (39’3.5”) and Dice (38’11.25”) were fifth and sixth in the event.
Red Raider James Burke won the opening event of the day, the 400 meter hurdles, in 1:02.09, with teammate and fellow junior Cole LaBarre second in 1:02.54. Sophomore Connor Berich was fourth in 1:05.3.
Juniors Luke Halbruner and Duke Guenther went 1-2 in the 100 meter dash. Halbruner won in 11.45 seconds with Guenther right behind in 11.88.
Guenther took the 200 meter title in 24.32 seconds, just 2/100ths of a second ahead of LCMR’s Braswell Thomas. Ocean City’s Fischer was third in 24.59 seconds.
Fischer was a winner in the 400 meters, taking the event title in 52.89 seconds. Teammate Jude Govern, a freshman, was fourth in 56.65 seconds.
LaBarre led a 1-2-3 sweep of the 110 meter high hurdles. He finished in 17.29 seconds followed by Berich in 17.45 and sophomore Ryan Davis in 17.8.
Senior Nick Scarangelli won the 1600 meters with his time of 4:34.79. Freshman teammate Robert Cesari was fourth in 4:49.44 and sophomore Zach Hutchinson was sixth in 4:54.73.
Junior Matt Hoffman led another sweep, this time in the 800 meters. He won in 2:03.11 with senior Ethan Eiler second in 2:10.82 and sophomore Caleb Aristizabal third in 2:15.22.
Ocean City’s Ethan Buck and Erik Preisner went 1-2 in the 3200 meters. Buck, a sophomore, won in 10:23.28 and Preisner, a freshman, was second in 10:28.92. Teammate Matthew Lenko, a junior, was fifth in 11:55.88.
Ocean City won the 4×400 in a time of 3:37.80.
The Ocean City boys are competing in the Cape-Atlantic League Track and Field Championships at 4 p.m. today at Bridgeton High School.
Photos and story by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
