Repeat winners

Day Two of the Group I Championships brings Salem County two more state champions – Schalick’s Jordan Hadfield (1600) and Woodstown’s record-setting 4×800 relay; county produces 5 champions total

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

SOMERSET – From the minute they were put together right before the sectionals last May, it was days like this the Woodstown 4×800 relay team has been training for.

The quartet of Jacob Marino, Karson Chew, Cole Lucas and Josh Crawford has won a lot of races, broke a bunch of records and even won a state championship in the 12 months they’ve been together. But what they did Saturday in the Group I championship meet at Franklin High School took their legacy to a whole ‘nother level.

They won the Group I boys title for the second straight year, but this time set the meet and state Group I record while blowing away the field. Their 7:59.15 broke the old record set by Shore Regional in 2017 by seven-tenths of a second and were waiting for runner-up Hasbrouck Heights at the finish line, winning by more than 13 seconds over teams that pushed them last year.

“It wasn’t just like a win for us, it really showed how far we’ve come,” said anchor Crawford, who won the 800 individual title the day before. “Not that we could just win the state meet like we did last year, but really blow them out of the water. It was just a great day that we’ve been training for for weeks and weeks.”

“We’ve definitely grown and learned from last year to this year,” Chew added. “We’ve definitely made our statement that we wanted to make.”

The Wolverines’ relay team was one of two repeat state champions Salem County produced on Day Two of the meet. Schalick’s Jordan Hadfield defended her girls 1600 title, winning in a time of 5:01.16.

County athletes brought home a total of five state titles over the weekend. The top two finishers in each event qualified for Wednesday’s Meet of Champions at Pennsauken. Several other non-winners, like Lucas (800), Pennsville’s Connor Ayars (javelin) and Penns Grove triple jumper Bryan Garlic, qualified for wild cards.

The Wolverines went into the 4×800 maybe a little sore from Friday’s events but were confident about what they were going after and ran what Chew called a “perfectly smooth” race. All four runners went sub-60 on the first lap of their legs and all were around 1:02 bringing it home. Crawford called it “definitely the best performance” they put out to date.

“We came in knowing we were going to win,” coach Reggie Teemer said. “It was a matter of how dominant we were going to be.”

Like a Ferrari against a Volkswagen. Marino set the tone with a 59.90 out of the gate and completed his leg in a best-ever split 2:01.94. Chew followed with a 2:00.71 to establish the lead and as Teemer said, “it was over from there.”

Lucas, the lone senior in the group, stretched an already big lead with his 1:59.21 and Crawford brought it home in 1:57.27. By the time the baton got to Crawford, the Wolverines were racing against the clock in pursuit of the meet record.

“We came into this thinking we can do this, we can break this state record, we can hit this state championship again,” Chew said. “We came in thinking let’s give it our all and let’s see what happens and we’re very happy with how the result came out.

“Last year going into the state we thought we could win it and everybody did their job and we won it. This year, we were in some individual events and another relay, but this 4×8 is definitely the pinnacle of our team. We like to call our team the ‘Middle Distance University of Salem County’ because all of us are 800 runners, so it’s definitely one of our favorite events. It’s great to see my guys so happy about it and it’s great to get that championship done again.”

As strong as their run to the title was, it did miss one mark. The Wolverines were hoping to run a time fast enough to qualify for the New Balance Nationals later this summer, but came up just short of a 7:58 provisional time. That will be their focus at the Meet of Champions.

Chew and Crawford also ran legs on the Wolverines’ 4×400 relay team that finished second to the Camden team that ran in the Penn Relays, but they still qualified for the MOC. With his win in the 800 Friday, Crawford is qualified for three events in Pennsauken and “most likely” will run all three if the schedule allows.

“He had a great weekend,” Teemer said of Crawford.

NJSIAA GROUP I TRACK CHAMPIONSHIPS
At Franklin H.S., Somerset
(Top 2 advance to Meet of Champions, top 6 score meet points)
DAY TWO RESULTS
GIRLS
FINAL TEAM SCORES (Top 15): Clayton 73, Metuchen 56, Woodbury 29, Glassboro 28, Haddon Twp. 27, Hasbrouck Heights 27, Shore 27, Audubon 22, Maple Shade 18, Burlington City 18, Schalick 16, Riverside 16, Pennsville 16; Mountain Lakes 15, Verona 15. Also, Woodstown 3
INDIVIDUAL EVENTS
400: 1. Leila Ortiz, Clayton 57.42
4×800 Relay: 1. Shore 9:42.55; 6. Woodstown (Abby Marino, Samantha Sterner, Sarah Seiden, Lilian Norman) 10:10.28
100 Hurdles: 1. Ciani Floyd, Maple Shade 15.69
200: 1. Leila Ortiz, Clayton 25.57
1600: 1. Jordan Hadfield, Schalick 5:01.16
4×400 Relay: 1. Clayton 4:05.03
Shot Put: 1. Sunny Moore, Glassboro 39-9; 3. Tatiyonna Crawford, Pennsville 36-9
Javelin: 1. Rainelle Blocker, Clayton 110-1
Long Jump: 1. Denirah Jones, Woodbury 17-0; 5. Emma Perry, Woodstown 16-0.5
High Jump: 1. Taylor Peters, Butler 5-2

BOYS
FINAL TEAM SCORES (Top 15): Camden 46, Hasbrouck Heights 45, Glassboro 38.5, Woodstown 38, Manville 34, Clayton 32, Metuchen 24, Dayton 22, Pequannock 19, Schalick 18, Hawthorne 18, Indian Hills 16, Bound Brook 14, Kinnelon 14, Penns Grove 13. Also, Salem 10, Pennsville 4
INDIVIDUAL EVENTS
400: 1. Alexander Osayemi, Clayton 47.81; 4. Josh Crawford, Woodstown 50.05
4×800 Relay: 1. Woodstown (Jacob Marino, Karson Chew, Cole Lucas, Josh Crawford) 7:59.15 (Group I meet record, old record 7:59.88 by Shore Regional, 2017)
110 Hurdles: 1. Williams Cusick, Creskill 14.57
200: 1. Alexander Osayemi, Clayton 22.04; 4. David Stewart, Schalick 22.47; 5. Zaeshawn Mills, Schalick 22.48
1600: 1. Eric Schleif, Metuchen 4:22.02
4×400 Relay: 1. Camden 3:21.43; 2. Woodstown (Karson Chew, Kyle Reitz, Anthony Costello, Josh Crawford) 3:23.43; 3. Penns Grove (Kylee Goodson, Sebastian Hernandez, Bryan Garlic, Knowledge Young) 3:26.52
Discus: 1. Henry Struble, Pequannock 165-4
Triple Jump: 1. Dalsen Jean-Baptiste, Bound Brook 45-8.5; 3. Bryan Garlic, Penns Grove 44-0
Pole Vault: 1. Jacob George, Haddon Twp. 14-6