Closing of Track, Opening of Cross Country

Hello to the new Seniors, juniors, and lowerclassmen who will be contributing to the Cherry Hill High School East Cross Country Team this year; welcome to a new, blossoming season as well as a  neonatal era. I am Michael Bruce, a rising Senior of the season that is upon us, and along with my Co-captain and Senior Chris Arnold, I will be posting information, race reviews, and many more things on this site.

To begin, I will recap the final chapters of the 2012 Track season.

At the final duel meet of the season, East traveled to Lenape to wrap up its “Conference” championship season. East won in a closer battle than expected and wrapped up its 5 – 0 DIVISIONAL record. Notable performances were run by Michael Minion in the 3200m, Alex Reber in the 800m and Ben Dillon in the 1600m.

Not long after the Lenape duel meet, a multitude of East runners hiked to the ghastly Haddonfield track to compete at distance night. In one of East Distance’s most successful 800m events in the entire season, Chris Jarnold jarred the stadium with a nicely-done PR, racing a 2:09; in a different heat, Aaron Zucker zucked the competition by running a speedy PR of 2:18. Well done. Later, in the non-freshman mile, Sean Taylor and John “Flat” Warkala took a tremendous pacing job by Jac-kick Fiedler and turned it into two solid PRs of 5:04 and 5:00, respectively. Finally, in the fast heat, Tyler Russ finished up his career at East, soon to be continued at Elizabethtown, with a PR of 4:49. Unfortunately, in the Freshman mile, the racers were disappointed by undistinguished times along with unfulfilled goals. Last but not least, East (AKA Russell Beatty) raced in the 3200m. Russell ran a remarkable race, unearthing a 10:07 for the best performance of the night; unfortunately for us, Russell will be graduating on Monday, after only one year of high school. Great job at the apex of another track season.

That Friday and Saturday, many of our runners who did not perform at distance night traveled to Egg Harbor Township for South Jersey’s Group IV sectional championship.  In scorching heat, standout performances were posted by Ben Dillon with a 9:54 in the 3200m, as well as Dan Helfand and Jared Dashevsky with 4:43 and 4:40, respectively, in the 1600m. However, for the first time since the 2008 season, one of our Spring Track athletes on the distance team moved on to states; congratulations, Ben Dillon, on your qualifying 6^th place at the meet. Ben traveled to Old Bridge to compete at Group IV States and ran the same time. Great finish to an even better season, Ben.

Now back to the present day and the great season of Cross Country; we will begin our team functions with a freshman BBQ at Chris Arnold’s house at 5pm on the 24^th of June.  We are expecting all freshmen joining our team to attend.  The next day we will be holding our first practice at 6:30pm by the locker rooms at Cherry Hill High School East. Similarly, all returning and freshmen runners MUST attend. All information about the upcoming season will be dealt out on these two dates, so it is CRITICAL that all Team members attend BOTH. Similarly, all RETURNERS are expected to be prepared, with exceptions for Michael Wang, Michael Minion, Dan Helfand, Ben Dillon, to handle the schedule at practice completely.

Just as a reminder, it is also very important to turn in updated physical forms as well as activity fees as soon as possible. If anyone is unable to get an updated physical outside of school, one has the option of getting it for free at Cherry Hill High School East in early August. Check East’s website for more details.

Keep running boys, I can already see Holmdel on the horizon.