Ahhh the taste of victory, gotta love it.
On Saturday the 15th, the boys and girls headed back up to good ol' GCC to compete in the Camden County Championship meet. The 20+ MPH winds and muddy conditions led to some fun racing conditions, and our hard work led to our team bringing home a large stack of medals, plaques, and a big ol' trophy reading "1st place team".
The JV'ers led the day off with another impressive performance. Taking it out and leading virtually the entire race was the ever classy Michael Minion, who notched a victory and a time of 18:00. Filing in behind Mike were Jared "The Chef" Dashevsky and Ben "The Bear"Helfand, finishing 2nd and 3rd, with times of 18:06 and 18:17 respectively. Sean "The Trophy" Taylor and Matt "Psych Party" Burt were East's 4th and 5th guys in the JV race. After manually scoring the race, I believe that we won it 35-40 over Eustace. We're a JV Powerhouse. Good work.
Other noteworthy results-
Joey A 19:41 (had fun doing it)
Walder 20:00 (oof).
Zucker 21:36 (ZUCKER!)
Arjun 22:58 (Big PR for the 'Jun)
Tinkleman 25:03 (1st ever race)
Next came the Varsity race. Lets set the scene, shall we? East has won this race in 2008, 2009, and 2010, and planned on tallying number 4. With undoubtedly the toughest competition I've seen at the county race this year, we knew it was no walk in the park. So, This race was basically the reason there is a saying "every runner counts" on a 7-man team. Zachary "Joe Cool" Iannarelli and "Lasagna" DJ Rodriquez battled for the entire length of the course, with Zach edging him out by the slim margain of 4 seconds. The two finished in 4th and 5th, and both earned plaques for making "first team all-county". Zach's second year in a row. Sophomore Benjamin "crossing-the-line" Dillon ran a strong race as our third man running a 17:25. Good for tenth place. Michael "can i get a ride?" Wang was also key to this victory as he finished no more than 12 seconds faster than 6 trailing runners, and got eleventh place with his 17:37. Tyler "need a hug?" Russ was 5th across the line for east running 17:46.
Now is when things get interesting... According to the original results, we won the meet 43-45. These results were wrong. They had Ben Dillon beating Highland's number 4, which was false, as video evidence was needed to prove. After this confusion was settled, more confusion took place! The score was now tied 44-44, Wha? Yeah. A tie. So we had a run-off! Just kidding. (wouldn't that be sick though?) The official rules claim that the team with the faster 6th man wins the meet. So we go to the results. 16th place–Russell (Varsity) Beatty, 31st place–Highland's 6th man! East wins! East wins! East wins! A true team effort (Richy Zhoa was our 7th man, but beat out Highland's 5th man by 3 seconds. Losing this spot would have resulted in a loss) led to this victory, and although our times weren't nearly what we wanted or expected, the goal was accomplished, and we were handed a Sean Taylor-looking trophy. Good for us.
Ahh last but not least. The Frosh. Danny (Walder's little buddy) Helfand won the race with a 14:03 on the classic 3800 meter course. Chris (Lax-Bro) Mele finished 5th in 14:39 and LoKe$ha Shah was our 3rd frosh across the line in 21st.
And now for a strange twist, I'll update y'all about the girls. Maddy Berman ran a 21:22, which was good for 4th place, and a 1st-team all county plaque. Well done Maddy! Dani Impag ran a strong race, but was just inched out by some Eastern girl for 7th, so Dani was sent home plaque-free.
Overall, our varsity squad came in and held the title for another year, no matter how ugly it looked. The JV's represented very well again, and Dan Helfand won the freshman race. Conference is on Friday, and it's some of our last races at GCC in our lifetimes, so let's make it count.
As always, keep runnin'
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