With one key runner falling ill, others stepped up to win the Group III title
HOLMDEL — For the second time in program history, the Ocean City High School girls cross country team is a state champion.
The Red Raider girls won the Group III title Saturday at Holmdel Park even though one of their top-scoring runners became ill during the race. Her teammates stepped up.
Coach Tim Cook and his runners had to wait on pins and needles for the result to be posted before they were able to celebrate the first state title for the girls cross country program since 1988.
The Red Raider boys team finished in second place at the meet.
The girls won with 94 points. Middletown South finished second as a team with 110 points and North Hunterdon was third with 117. There were 19 teams in the Group III girls meet.
Sophomore Riley Tolson led the Red Raiders with her third-place finish. Her time was 19 minutes, 13.65 seconds.
Allison Lee of West Windsor-Plainsboro North was the individual winner, finishing in 18:13.17. Second-place Helena Szep of Middletown North finished a split-second ahead of Tolson in 19:13.52.
Ocean City junior Carley Godfrey was eighth in 19:39.87, junior Peighton Clemens was 27th in 20:42.18, sophomore Lenna Driscoll 37th in 21:02.97 and freshman Bella Cera 38th in a time of 21:03.22 to round out the scoring.
Because some runners at the state meet were competing as individuals and not as teams, their ranked finish had Clemens earning 22nd place and Driscoll and Cera 30th and 31st.
Raider Gabrielle Henry, a senior, was 54th (46th) in 21:30.97, and junior Lillian Flora 70th (61st), 21:56.28.
“Lillian Flora was the one that actually ended up having to go to the hospital. She’s OK now, but she was dehydrated, so she ended up falling to the back of the pack,” Cook said. “And then every other girl stepped up to kind of replace her.”
He explained the hospital visit was just to check her out, but she and her parents were able to join the team later for the celebration at DiOrio’s in Somers Point.
Flora finished second in the South Jersey sectional meet behind Tolson and has been a key scorer for the team all seaon. Godfrey was third in the 1-2-3 sweep at Dream Park.
“I don’t know how much they understand what they did,” Cook said about his runners winning a state championship. “Maybe it’ll hit them in a little bit or maybe it’ll hit them after the season’s over. They were so excited. They were elated. It was great. They got the police and fire department escort back into the city. They got to take pictures on top of the fire truck. Those were all the cool things that they deserve.”
Cook’s team finished second at states last year.
The girls won the South Jersey Group III sectional a week earlier (their third straight). They also won the Cape-Atlantic League Championship and the Cape May County Championship.
The win propels them on to the Meet of Champions next week at Holmdel.
The coach said despite the fact he’s usually pretty mellow, he had a hard time sleeping the night before.
“I was anxious to just get to the race and I just knew what the girls could do, so I just wanted it to happen now,” he said.
Cook said they talked with the girls all week about what they needed to do and on Friday sat in a classroom and went over some things, looked at times and some race videos “so they had an idea of how fast to come out, who to look for, when to make a push, all those kind of things.
“And they did it. They really executed the plan, which is great.”
Cook said cell phone reception at the hilly Holmdel Park course is spotty so it was tough to get results quickly.
“We’re at the line watching them come through and nobody knows who wins,” he said.
Cook was also tending to Flora as everyone was waiting for results. “I guess it adds to the intensity of the day,” he said of the delay.
“Everybody’s kind of in this weird air of unknown for all the teams. And then eventually, for some reason, I got a couple bars and my phone started getting text messages from people who weren’t at the meet saying, ‘hey, congrats, so awesome,’ but until I saw the results for myself, I wasn’t believing a thing.”
Cook said it’s a good opportunity for the girls to compete at the Meet of Champions next week against great competition.
“We’re going be in the mix, which would be good. Obviously, Union Catholic is far and away the best team in the state. Voorhees is really good, Ridgewood is really good, but we’ll get a good battle with some of the top of the state,” he said.
“I tried to explain to the girls they’re going to go toe to toe with some of these nationally ranked kids, so it’s a cool opportunity. We just want to go and have a good showing and you know, see where we can place. It’ll be awesome.”
The future looks bright as well.
“Gabby’s our only senior from our group and we have a freshman who’s our alternate and runs about the same time, so we pretty much bring seven of our eight girls back. Not to rush the rest of track season, but next cross country season is going to be a lot of fun.”
After the Meet of Champions, Cook’s team will run at Nike Nationals.
“Then we get to chill out before winter track starts. It’s like 10 days or something, but I’ll take it.”
Ocean City boys
The girls team will be joined at the Meet of Champions by the boys team courtesy of its second-place finish at the state Group III meet.
The boys totaled 102 points, behind first-place Colts Neck with 87 and just ahead of third-place North Hunterdon with 110. There were 20 teams competing in the state meet.
Colts Neck’s Jay Adimala was the individual winner, finishing in 15:52.31.
Red Raiders Nathan Aschmann and Erik Preisner finished in the top 10. Aschmann was eighth in 16:28.72 and Preisner, a senior, was 10th in 16:29.94.
Benjamin McCarthy was 28th, 17:24.84; junior Michael Romano 38th, 17:34.21; and junior Keenan Neuman 43rd, 17:37.67, to round out the scorers.
Because of team scoring, Aschmann was sixth, Preisner eighth, McCarthy 22nd, Romano 31st and Neuman 35th.
Fellow Raiders sophomore Hayden Tarves was 94th (82nd) in 18:39.97 and sophomore Nevin Millstein 134th (121st) in 19:51.87.
The boys were second at states last year.
– By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
