6 Years IN A ROW
Cherokee Boys win their 6th straight Sectionals Title!
With the top seven runners preparing for sectionals, the rest of the team headed to Pennypacker Park on Tuesday, October 29th, for the Baker Sub-Varsity Invitational - the unofficial South Jersey JV championship.
The Pennypacker Park course is usually fast but changes made to the course due to construction, and the dry dusty weather, made the course pretty slow this year. Still, it was a chance to see how we would fare against the other programs in South Jersey.
In the B race, which went first, we had just one runner, Fletcher D’Alessandro, and he made the most of it. Fletcher was the only Cherokee runner on the day to set a new PR as he dropped 10 seconds off of his previous best from the Olympic Conference Meet!
The A race was next and the Cherokee runners were ready! Anthony DiBatista - 1st, Tate Midora - 2nd, Dom Pileri - 4th, Gavin Danielewicz - 6th, Max Harada - 7th and Leo Vyvyan - 8th gave us six runners Among the top eight for a commanding team victory with a mere 20 points! Bruce Novoa - 19th, Liam Daimler - 21st, Evan Amato - 23rd and Carlo Brown - 25th made it ten Cherokee runners among the top twenty-five! Seven of those ten are back next year to contend for spots in the varsity seven!
The Intersquad competition was a little closer, but not particularly close as the middle of the Thompson Team line-up did a great job against their counterparts on Team Shak, winning 49 to 56. Through six runners, it was close with Team Shak up by one over Team Thompson. It was at that point that things began to change in favor of Thompson’s runners, as they took five of the next seven places to seal the victory. Coach Shak was only slightly disappointed, however, as he took comfort in the strong overall performance by the entire team, which dominated the meet and demonstrated that Cherokee is not just seven runners strong, but has quality athletes throughout the entire roster!
Sectionals
Coming off of the Olympic Conference Meet, and a decisive victory over a very good Cherry Hill East team, we entered the South Jersey Sectional Meet, full of confidence and ready to extend our sectional win streak to six. Cherry Hill East, however, was out to stop us. They were more determined and more focused than a week ago and they made things interesting over the later stages of the race.
Our seven athletes were all running in a very large pack (which included East’s seven as well) through more than half the race before things got going. When the real racing began, the pack strung out pretty quickly. As it did, it became clear that it was going to be a much closer race against Cherry Hill East this time around. As expected, Jack Tindall led the last segment of the race and opened up a small lead by the finish. His time of 15:27 was the fastest time of the day and broke his own freshman course record by seven seconds!
East runners took the next two spots with Liam Tindall and Ben Realley finishing fourth and fifth, Liam with a five-second improvement over the conference race, and Ben one second off his conference time. Enzo Corona and Ben Weiner both ran strong races, improving by fourteen and nine seconds respectively, to take eighth and twelfth and secure the team win! Sean Sooy and Logan Bromley finished fourteenth and twenty-third as our sixth and seventh men.
The runners of the meet are tied between Enzo and Ben W. Both rose to the occasion and had their best races of the year when we needed them.
The final result was a 10-point margin of victory over Cherry Hill East and a sixth consecutive sectional championship for the program, giving us fourteen total, twice as many as the second-highest championship total (seven for Toms River North). The team improved the Dream Park Course 5-Man Average record they set at the Olympic Conference Meet by three seconds with an average of 15:45.
While there were some good races from several of our seven. It was great to win another sectional title, we know that we have to do better if we intend to take the State Group 4 title next Saturday at Holmdel Park. Our focus for this week is to physically and mentally prepare for that challenge.
Video of the race (you need a PRO milesplit account)
Articles from Roob at SJTrack Blog & here
Fundraising Goals
It is the mission of 4xAlumni to support the current crop of track and field and cross country athletes.
We are focusing on 5 major areas that we feel, with the support of the coaches, are important for this generation of student-athletes:
Offset or completely cover the cost of post-season events not sponsored by the school. This includes National Meets (cross country, indoor and outdoor track) and invitationals (Oregon, etc).
Award scholarships for deserving seniors.
Provide State Champions and School Record holders with gifts.
Support families with athletes who would like to attend a cross country camp but cannot afford it.
Provide funding for athletes needing physiotherapy who cannot afford it.
We currently only have the availability to collect funds via Venmo, but we are actively seeking ways to collect via credit card, Zelle, PayPal, and other forms to accommodate the ecosystem in 2024.
During the months of September, October and November, we will be collecting funds that will directly contribute to funding for cross country post-season meets. Please consider donating to help fund our scholarship money.
Venmo: @ Cherokee4xalumni
About 4xAlumni
We are a non-profit organization with volunteer board members that seek to help provide funds that go directly to the current team. Our mission is:
to provide funding for travel and lodging to championship meets not covered by the school.
to provide scholarships to graduating seniors.
to provide recognition and awards to State Champion winners and new School Record holders.
to provide funding for current athletes who need assistance attending cross country camp.
to provide funding for current athletes who need assistance seeking treatment from injuries related to track/cross country.
Our Board
President: Jeff Storch ‘99
Vice President: Michelle (Bilicki) Wolosky ‘01
Secretary and Treasurer: Caitlin (O’Malley) Bertheaud ‘05
Social Media & Communication: Lisa Burkholder ‘06
Marketing & Fundraising: Marc Pelerin ‘02
Event Coordinator: Tim Haggerty ‘96
Team Liaison: Dave Sitzer ‘00
Voting Members: Joe Halin ‘00 & Sunny Patel ‘96
Venmo: @ Cherokee4xalumni