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SERAPHS SUPREME
Mater Dei captured its first state title since 1999 on Saturday at Holmdel and leads five boys XC teams into next Saturday's Meet of Champions.
Published: 11/10/2007
By - Scott Clayton - Senior Staff Writer
Now with complete video coverage.
HOLMDEL - Some day
in the future, Mater Dei will win another state cross country
championship. When that day comes, whether it be next year or 15
Novembers down the road, bank on there being members of the 2007 team
on hand to bear witness to the event. Call it keeping tradition alive.
Mater Dei rolled to a convincing win in the Non-Public B boys race
Saturday at Holmdel Park, the school's first in eight years, with a
score of just 36 points, best among the six boys team champions.
Ever eager to link the past to the present, Mater Dei head coach
Mike Tursi introduced to the team after the race eight alumni of the
program whose careers fell between Seraphs state championships. The
team is hard at work in closing such gaps in its history. The Seraphs
sixth state title ties them with Toms River North for second-most in
conference history behind Christian Brothers Academy's state-record 22
wins in Parochial/Non-Public A.
"Don't take it for granted guys, because you never know when we're
going to get back to this spot again," Tursi told his team.
With four seniors in its top seven, Mater Dei easily outpaced
Moorestown Friends (70 points) and two-time defending champion Pingry
(77). Mater Dei's top five finished in the top 13 spots of the race.
"The big goal of the season was to win the states - Parochial B -
and everything has worked out well so far," senior Curtis Jensen said.
Jensen and junior teammate Patrick O'Boyle outraced Pingry's top
two in the field to place second (16:46) and third (16:53),
respectively, behind one of the co-favorites for next week's Meet of
Champions title, Gill-St. Bernard's junior Doug Smith.
"Me and Doug Smith all the way up the start hill were together,"
Jensen said. "I knew he was going to go out and do his thing and beat
me, but I was going for second-place the whole time. Me and Pat wanted
to get our 1-2 in before their 1-2 and then get our 3, 4, and 5 under
18 (minutes)."
The Seraphs nearly executed their plan flawlessly. Senior Ryan
Lundy's personal best of 17:47 was good for 10th place with sophomore
Mike Wojcik crossed in an identical time for 11th. Sophomore Jonathan
Urena capped the scoring in 13th, running just off his best with an
18:02.
"It felt great," Lundy said. "Right in the starting woods, we had
four guys with their top two and we felt like it was going to be our
race. We just kept pushing after that."
Deja Vu For Shore's Top Teams
Jackson hopes this familiar feeling on the second Saturday in
November will lead to another familiar feeling next week, no matter how
remote the prospect of a repeat All-Group title seems.
"We really wanted to win this race, considering we were third last
year," senior Austin Santillo said, "but this isn't the big race. Next
week is, so we're just going to try to focus on that."
Jackson, which rebounded from a third-place Group IV finish to win
the Meet of Champions in 2006, will hope to do the same thing again
after Cherokee and Old Bridge outran the Jaguars in Group IV. Santillo
paced the Jaguars as he has all season, with an eighth-place finish in
a Shore Conference-heavy race. The Jags finished with 154 points, to
146 for second-place Old Bridge and 104 for Cherokee.
Santillo (16:27) was joined in the top 10 by Brick Memorial's
Andrew Brodeur, second in 16:05, and Manalapan's Robby Andrews, fifth
in 16:14. Jackson will look for improvement from its fourth and fifth
finishers, Dan Collura and Ed McQuade, as the key to any title hopes
next Saturday.
"We've been doing well, but I guess everyone has an off-day every
once in a while," Santillo said. "We're a little down on ourselves, but
we're still looking forward to next week."
Also repeating its finish from a year ago was Christian Brothers
Academy, the second-place finisher in Non-Public A. Monsignor Donovan's
third-place showing in the same race and Holmdel's Group II runner-up
status means five local teams will lace 'em up next Saturday. Don Bosco
became the first team to keep CBA from victory for two straight years
since Paul VI won three straight Parochial A titles from 1988 to 1990.
The Colts' average time of 16:56.2, however, was 34 seconds faster per
man than in the same second-place finish a year ago and the Ironmen's
55-71 margin of victory was slim enough to provide a flicker of hope
for many of the state's top teams entering the final week of the
in-state season.
Donovan's Ray Coles and George Johnson placed third and fifth in the Non-Public A race, running
16:19 and 16:21, respectively.
Holmdel finished well off the pace of Haddonfield, but well ahead
of third-place Bernards with its 108-point Group II showing.
Also Returning Next Week
In addition to Brodeur and Andrews, the only boy to qualify for
the Meet of Champions by virtue of a top-10 finish was Red Bank
sophomore Matt Metlitz, who placed eighth in Group II with a time of
16:43.
Colts Neck junior Mark Leininger (16:37 for 11th in Group IV) and
Lacey's Phillip Wood (16:38 for 13th in Group III) will advance to the
Meet of Champions as wild-cards, which are awarded to the 10 fastest
non-automatic qualifiers.
Click here for full results
E-mail: clayton@digitalsports.com
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