Eastern, Woodbury, Cherokee

Howdy Y'all, sorry about the delay in the posts.

On April 18th, Eastern came to East.  In the 1600, Sophomore Jared Deshevsky ran a 4:45 for 2nd, and juniors Joey Andalora and Mike Minion ran 4:48 and 4:49. Joey finished 3rd.  Sophomore John (Kennedy) Warkala pr'ed running a 5:04.  In the 800, senior Joe Pelligrino won the race with a time of 2:00, Junior Joey Andalora ran a 2:06 for 3rd, and Junior  Mike Wang  ran a 2:08 for 4th.  East did a great job in the 3200 and swept the competition with ease.  Sophomore Ben Dillon won the race with a pr of 10:10, and ran the last 20 meteres of the race with a big smile on his face.  Senior Russell Beatty ran hard and pr'ed with a 10:16, and senior Ben Helfand ran his first 3200 since sophomore year and had himself a very respectable race.  He grabbed 3rd with a 10:35.  East won this meet making them 3-0, matching their win total of last year.  Great job!

On April 21st, a select few competed in the Woodbury relays.  Our DMR team came 7th running a 11:15.  Some highlights from that race were Sophomores Jared Deshevsky and Ben Dillon running 3:23 and 4:51.  Congratulations to Cherry Hill East's 4x100, 4x200, and 4x400 relay teams for winning their races and earning gold watches.

Finally, On April 24th, the East track team went to Cherokee for what turned out to be an amazing meet.  Last year, cherokee stole a win from us because our pole vault pit was ruled "unsafe" and they earned all the points in that event.  In the 1600, cherokee swept us.  Some notable performances were Junior Mike Wang running a 4:46, Seniors Russell Beatty and Ben Helfand  running 4:49's, and Freshman  Dan Helfand pr'ing with a 4:52.  In the 800, Senior Joe Pelligrino came 3rd in a very fast race with a time of 1:58.  Junior Joey Andalora came 4th running a 2:06.  Now, going into the 3200, the meet was tied.  It was a very tough performance by East, with Senior Tyler Russ setting the pace at first.  Then Junior  Mike Minion  took control until the last lap when a cherokee senior took off.  With 200 meters to go, cherokee had basically locked up the win, Ben Dillon had 2nd by a good amount, and Mike Minion was in 4th and was trailing the 3rd place runner by about 10-15 meters.  Sophomore Ben Dillon  pr'ed and grabbed 2nd with a 10:04, and with 70 meters to go, junior Mike Minion has a ridiculous kick and grabs 3rd with a huge pr of 10:06.  This was critical because East ended up winning the meet by half a point because our stud high jumpers swept the event.  The final high jumper, with 2 fouls already under him cleared the bar to win the meet and made East 4-0, and this puts us in a good spot for the Divisional title.  If it was my choice, the unsung hero of the meet was Mike Minion.  If he didn't grab 3rd, the meet would have been lost.