Boys Recap from the Shore Coaches Invitational 2024
The Shore Coaches Invitational, often considered the “midterm exam” of New Jersey XC, is hugely popular for a reason. It’s a rare opportunity to race on the challenging Holmdel Park course you’ll see at the state championships, against the type of competition you’ll see at the state championships. Add in the beautiful fall weather (a major improvement from last year) and it’s easy to see why 247 schools registered for today’s meet.
That said, although almost all the major teams showed up, not all the major individuals showed up. Many runners had real exams today — it was a big SAT day — and other schools decided to split off their best freshmen to run the two-mile races instead. So, we still don’t know everything about how teams stack up against each other, but we know a lot more than we did yesterday.
Below are recaps and highlights of how each Mercer County boys team did at Holmdel today. Read the girls recap here.
Boys Varsity A
West Windsor-Plainsboro South’s Shravan Pradeep was the top Mercer County boy today, taking 7th in the Boys Varsity A race in 16:31, breaking his Holmdel PR by over a minute. His time was also 14th overall in the merged results, showing that he very much deserves to be in the conversation of the state’s top runners. His teammate Kevin Lang is a candidate for the most improved award, dropping his Holmdel PR from 19:12 to 17:26. Lang finished 33rd, just missing out on a medal in the fastest race of the day.
The West Windsor-Plainsboro South boys finished 9th in the Boys Varsity A race, though they were without key scorer Joseph Maddalon, who ran 17:33 at this meet last year. Also, their varsity score overlooks how well their JV squad ran. Aron Zola (18:08 for 7th in the Boys JV A race), Harsh Sharma (18:20 for 14th), and Sean Maina (18:24 for 17th) each would’ve scored for the varsity and would’ve dropped the varsity’s average time from 17:49 to 17:42.
Trenton ran four boys in the varsity race and four in the JV race. Their top finishers were Isaiah Mitchell (21:24) and Briyon Ellerbe (21:38), who became just the second and third Trenton boys to break 22:00 at Holmdel in the last five years.
Boys Varsity B
Steinert's Tyler Hurst comes into the finish at the Shore Coaches Invitational 2024. | Tom Smith for MileSplit
The Princeton boys were the top Mercer County team on Saturday, thanks to their impressive depth. Using a tight 1-5 split of 0:49, they averaged 17:39 and scored 160 points to take 4th in the Varsity B race. They were led by Felix Farrugia and Braedyn Capone, who finished together in 17:22 in 20th and 21st. Farrugia and Capone are apparently inseparable at Holmdel – the duo’s previous PRs were from when they finished together in 17:54 at last year’s group championship. Finn Wedmid was close behind in 17:31 for 27th, giving the Princeton boys three medals on the day.
Steinert’s Tyler Hurst finished 15th and was actually the top Mercer County individual in the Varsity B race. In only his second try at Holmdel, he dropped his PR from 17:50 to 17:08. Thanks in part to Holmdel PRs from him, Nathaniel Bigger, and Adam Szpakowski, Steinert’s team average was about 40 seconds faster than at this meet last year.
Hightstown’s Mason Johnson continued proving how much faster he’s gotten in the last year, running 18:23 to crush his Holmdel PR by almost two minutes. The rest of Hightstown’s top five finished pretty much together, all between 19:15 and 19:27. JV runner Maahir Chadha would have been right with that pack – he ran 19:16 to get 8th in the Boys JV B race.
Boys Varsity C
Freshman Agrim Jha (West Windsor-Plainsboro North) rips a huge time in his Holmdel debut. | Tom Smith for MileSplit
In the Boys Varsity C race, we got our first look this season at West Windsor-Plainsboro North. Rather, it was a partial first look, because key players like Subomi Allison, Jordan Andrade, and Veejhay Roy were either missing or not 100%. The highlight of this race was freshman Agrim Jha opting to run the full 5K and then crushing a 17:03 for 12th place, making him the second-fastest freshman at Holmdel Park this year. Luke Ferrer ran a very solid 17:10 for 15th place, and Paul Wittenberg snagged the last medal with a 17:42. Even without being at full strength, the Knights averaged 17:47.
The West Windsor-Plainsboro North JV team also deserves a shout-out, with Soham Shah (18:42) and Askash Myadam (18:48) going 3-4 in the Boys JV C race.
Hopewell Valley teammates Silas Allevik and Finnegan Curley continue to build momentum in their impressive sophomore campaigns. Allevik was 14th in 17:08 and Curley was 18th in 17:14. Those are both Holmdel PRs by about a minute and make them the seventh- and eighth-fastest sophomores at Holmdel Park this year. The Bulldogs averaged 17:59, the same time they averaged at the group championships last year.
Even though Allentown was missing one of its top runners in Landon Kent, they once again displayed their incredible improvement this season by averaging 18:32, crushing the 19:31 they averaged at this meet last year. Junior John O’Leary led the team, running 17:41 – almost two minutes faster than last year – to medal in 29th place. Senior Ethan Urig dropped his Holmdel PR by even more, from 21:01 to 18:50.
Lawrence’s varsity team consisted of four freshmen, and they deserve a lot of credit for braving the full 5K, with the Bowl and everything. And they ran well, too! Harrison Petrick finished in 20:17, just a few seconds slower than he ran two weeks ago at the flatter TCNJ Invitational. Maybe even more surprising was Wade Bullard, whose time was 20:39 – a faster pace than he had run for just two miles at the Thompson 2 Miler.
Boys Varsity D
Nottingham averaged 20:29 in the Varsity D race, led by senior Mohamed Toure. The mid-distance star continued his successful foray into XC by running 18:10 for 17th place. Behind him, sophomore Matthew Alvarez ran 20:12 to accomplish the rare feat of running faster at Holmdel Park this week than at Thompson Park last week.
Ewing’s top boys finished in pairs, with Jayden Studivant and Shazad together in 19:59 and 20:00 and then Taylor Saunders and Landyn Loesch together in 20:44 and 20:45. Their fifth man was freshman Jason Zhu, who ran a solid 21:37 in the first major 5K of his career.
Boys Varsity E
Robbinsville got 16th in the Varsity E race, averaging 19:48. They were led by senior Wyatt Bassman, who broke 19:00 at Holmdel for the first time with an 18:41. Junior Nish Seshadri ran 19:13 to take twenty seconds off his time from last year.
Boys Varsity F
Peddie averaged 19:25 for 13th in the Varsity F race. Senior James Hamnett led the way in 17:57, breaking 18:00 at Holmdel for the first time in what was also his first major meet of the season. Their third runner, Landen Jefferson, also showed big improvement from last year, lowering his time 21:19 from to 19:36.
Wilberforce was close behind Peddie in 15th place, led by Elias Edwards in 18:31. Freshman Caed Wilson impressed with an 19:42, the same time he ran at the faster Jerry Hart Invitational course.
Boys Varsity G
Lawrenceville took 2nd in the Varsity G race with a team average of 18:37.80. Lawrenceville’s Taksh Gupta won a tight battle down the homestretch for 3rd place — he and the next runner were both credited with 17:18. Lawrenceville got three more finishers in the top 20: Hejyule Bae-Robinson continued his strong freshman campaign by finishing 14th in 18:12, sophomore teammate Arunav Sarkar was right behind him in 18:14, and junior Nico Montenecourt – in his first year of XC – was 18th in 18:44.
Lawrenceville’s team average, however, doesn’t account for Naren Maharana, who has consistently been in Lawrenceville’s top five but ran in the Boys Freshman C race today, where he got 3rd place in 11:52.