A webpage dedicated to covering local sports news in Pennsville, Salem County and surrounding communities
Sibling sweep
Jacob and Abby Marino give Woodstown unique brother-sister sweep in Salem County Cross Country Championships; Woodstown boys, Schalick girls win team crowns
By Al Muskewitz Riverview Sports News
PITTSGROVE — Jacob and Abby Marino were sitting in the living room Tuesday night talking with their mom about how special it would be for brother and sister to win their respective races in the Salem County Cross Country Championships the next day. The conversation was light and hopeful.
It would be their last chance to pull it off and their best chance of happening — one, because Jacob is a senior and was making his last stand and, two, because there’s a changing of the guard on the girls side of the race.
They talked about it Tuesday. Less than 24 hours later the siblings were high-fiving after pulling it off.
Jacob won the boys race with a PR 16:37 after some trouble in Turn One. Sophomore sister Abby completed the gold-medal family portrait, winning with in 19:59 with plenty of room to spare.
“It’s awesome that we’re able to do this together, (in) my last county race, senior year,” said Jacob, who followed his sister to the finish from along the boundary. “It’s great that we’re able to win Salem Counties together my last year. It’s not something that gets to happen all the time, you know. It’s a big opportunity to finish together with your sibling in first place at a meet as big as the county meet.”
“It really means a lot to me,” Abby said. “It makes me really happy to see us both do it together. He always supports me every single race and I support him every single race.”
Jacob couldn’t recall the siblings ever winning race together although they have matched places “a lot.” They’re also believed to be the first brother-sister combo to win the county.
“Coming into this year we knew there was that chance and we wanted to build on that and win together,” Jacob said after his race. “That would be really cool as a family to both win counties.
“That was our goal for today. Obviously, we have a very strong bond as siblings, so we wanted to build on that.”
Abby led her race wire-to-wire and hit the tape more than a minute and a half ahead of second-place teammate Anabel Schaal. Jacob’s race had a bit more drama.
He and teammate Karson Chew were well in front of the pack running shoulder-to-shoulder through the first 1,000 yards, but when they turned behind the football stadium Chew came in too tight and hit the chain-link fence’s corner support post with his right arm and it knocked him off the pace.
Marino heard the impact of the collision, and as much as he felt for his friend, he had a race to run and focused on pulling away to avoid being caught by one of the defending race champion’s renowned closing kicks. Chew closed the gap a little, but Marino won the race by 21 seconds.
“That’s the most idiotic way for me to go out in the race,” Chew said. “I keep thinking to myself that’s something that would only happen to me. I would be the only person who would do that.
“I knew we were going to slingshot out of that turn, so I was trying to stick the inside as much as I could and I didn’t have peripheral vision. I turned in and the pole was there. I never thought I’d be going fast enough to not see something.”
Woodstown won the boys team title. Schalick edged Woodstown for the girls crown.
The Woodstown boys flooded the top 15, going 1-2-3 and 7 through 12. Schalick filled in the three spots in between and finished second.
Schalick won the girls title by four points. The Cougars placed all five of their counters in the top 10, with Helen Lillia and Emma Cain’s PR coming in behind Marino and Schaal. They led by a point after the first five counters were scored, then slammed the door with 6, 7 and 8.
Woodstown closed the gap with its fourth runner, but two more Schalick runners were among the traffic that helped keep the final Wolverines counter from making up enough of the difference.
Schalick coach Missy Pine couldn’t tell her runners they had won the meet as they were calculating the scores, but she didn’t have to. They knew it when they saw their coach crying on the side.
“We weren’t expecting it; this one surprised me,” Pine said. “I set goals for the girls and we went over them right before the race and they just went out and achieved above and beyond. They pushed the hardest that we could and were just amazing. So many personal bests today. They’ve been working really hard and I’m glad it was able to see pay off for them.”
Woodstown’s Jacob Marino (R) comforts teammate Karson Chew after they finished 1-2 in the boys race. They went stride-for-stride for the first 1,000 yards until Chew hit a fence post making a tight turn and fell off the pace.
BOYS TEAM: Woodstown 21, Schalick 50, Salem Tech 84, Salem 136
GIRLS TEAM: Schalick 28, Woodstown 32, Salem Tech 77
Riverview Sports News 