‘A nice surprise’ after starting season with unknowns
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – The Red Raider boys track and field team came into the season with a number of returning veterans, but also with a lot of unknowns after missing the 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic and graduating a lot of athletes from the team last spring.
That makes the 2021 season’s success unexpected.
“We lost a big chunk of team and the natural progression of training was thrown off,” head coach Matt Purdue said. “We didn’t have any expectations coming into this year. To be 8-1 at this point has been a nice surprise.”
Going into the Cape May County Championship at home on Wednesday afternoon, the Red Raiders have lost to only Egg Harbor Township, which is ranked as the top team in South Jersey. Next week, the team heads into sectionals; there is no Cape-Atlantic League championship this year.
Purdue credits the success to a strong coaching staff training young athletes and recent track converts, a strong cross-country team transitioning well into spring track and some key returning veterans who compete in multiple events.
The Red Raider cross country team finished second in South Jersey in the fall and a “nice core group of guys” from that team has been doing multiple events on the track team. Purdue cites runners including Tyler Greene, Brendan Schlatter, Owen Ritti, Aodhan Daly, Nick Ferzetti and Josh Hutchinson. Drew Tarr ran track his freshman season then came back for his senior season.
Looking at the performance list over the season, Ritti, Greene and Ferzetti, along with Nick Scarangelli, are all over the win and place columns in the 800, 1600 and 3200 meter races. Tarr is running well and winning the 800 and has had the third fastest time in school history in the 400 meters, clocking in just over 51 seconds. “To do that in his first season in three years is pretty good,” Purdue pointed out.
Schlatter, Daly and Hutchinson are also doing well for the team and scoring in the 400 meters and 400 intermediate hurdles. Volunteer coach and faculty member Mark Benedetto has been working with the runners at those distances, helping them make progress.
Brendan Schlatter and Aodhan Daly. In track and field they focus on some of the shorter distances. We have another volunteer coach, faculty member Mark Venedetto, who has been working with the 400 meter guys and they’ve been making progress.
“Josh Hutchinson has scored a lot of points for us in the 400,” Purdue added.
One of the multi-event athletes who has been having an excellent season is Dan Givens, who just broke Luciano Lubrano’s school record in the triple jump, jumping a distance of 44’.25”.
“Dan’s one of those athletes who competes in four events for us. He is quite capable or scoring and winning all four events in some meets. He’s been a real asset to the team as well,” Purdue said. “He typically does the long jump, the triple jump, the high hurdles and the high jump, which is (interesting) because his older brother Ryan, who had a big influence on him, also did those four events for us in almost every meet. There’s definitely a nice tradition in the Givens family.”
In the pole vault, the team has freshman Nick Layton, who has already cleared a height of 10 feet. What makes that impressive is that he never competed in the event before.
“One of our volunteer coaches, Tom Tyrell, has been working with the pole vaulters and really making progress with them over the past two months,” Purdue said. “All of our pole vaulters graduated last year so we didn’t have anybody who had even touched a pole before April.” Tyrell is an Ocean City High School graduate who competed in the pole vault in college. He got involved with the team last year just as the pandemic started out.
Purdue said there are a number of young athletes competing in the jumps, including freshmen, which “is pretty exciting seeing some for the young talent develop.” Aidan O’Kane has been scoring points in the triple jump for the Red Raiders.
The top sprinter for the team is four-year member Elijah Cochran, “another one of our real workhorses. He runs the 100, 200, the high hurdles in almost every meet for us. He is having a real strong season. He has PR’d in all three events this season. He’s also one of our senior captains as well.”
Brad Jamison is throwing 169 feet in the javelin. He was good as a sophomore and better as a senior. The team is putting him to other uses as well.
“A lot of our javelin throwers graduated last year so we asked Brad at the beginning of the season to rotate through the shot (put) and discus as well and he has really picked up both of those events quickly,” Purdue said. “He has won the shot put and is throwing well in the discus. He just had his personal record in the javelin against EHT and Holy Spirit. He worked hard in the weight room and is a lot stronger.” He is working with assistant coach Paul Baruffi on his technique. “We’re hoping he can place in the state meet and make it to the Meet of Champions this year,” Purdue said.
The coach noted Noah Murray, Colin Dice and Mike Constantino are also performing well in the weight events. Murray has thrown personal records in the shot put and javelin and is scoring a lot of points for the team. Dice is a sophomore with a family history of throwing the discus, including his older sister, who competes for the Red Raider girls in the event. Dice is the top discus thrower for the boys team.
Constantino is new to the team and is consistently the second best javelin thrower behind Jamison. The coach said he also puts in the time in the weight room.
“We never saw some of the athletes before April 20 so to be just a month into the season and have these athletes achieving what they are is a testament to their hard work,” Purdue said, “but also that I’m very fortunate to be part of a coaching staff that has so much talent to show the athletes the technique.”
After the county meet this week, Purdue said he hopes the team continues with its progress in the South Jersey Group III sectionals at Delsea.
“We know that Highland and some of the other traditional powers such as Deptford in South Jersey Group III will be impressive teams,” he said. “EHT is the top-ranked team in South Jersey and we faced them and competed against them so we’re going to go with the same approach into the South Jersey championship.
“Our goal is to go and be competitive and use the competition to draw us to our best performances. I’m hopeful we have a number of guys who have the ability and the competitive spirit to compete to make it through to the state championships,” he said.
The Cape May County Track and Field Championships begin at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 26, at Carey Stadium in Ocean City.
