Group Championships Recap: Princeton Girls, Princeton Day Boys Win Titles
Mercer County sent many of its best runners to take on the rest of the state at the NJSIAA Group Championships, and those runners delivered! Below are the main highlights from their performances. More analysis to come after videos, merges, and Meet of Champions qualifiers have been released. View full results here.
Girls
Group 2 Girls
Allentown finished 9th in Group 3 with a 22:04 average. Emilia Wroblewski led the way with a Top-20 finish, getting 19th in 20:13. Fellow senior Madeline Ruchelman was 52nd in 21:49. Annie Gooley (64th in 22:22) cut over a minute off her Shore Coaches time from last month. The younger sisters Daria Wroblewski and Emma Ruchelman pushed each other to sub-23 finishes, crossing the line together in 22:58.
Robbinsville’s Kellianne White, an individual qualifier for the group championships, finished 83rd in 22:55. That caps off a stellar season where the senior White not only made major leaps as an individual but also took over a team that had just graduated four of its top five and helped lead it to the brink of qualification for groups. Very well done!
Group 3 Girls
In the Group 3 race, Hopewell Valley and West Windsor-Plainsboro North both ran very well, taking 4th and 5th place and beating out multiple teams that were ranked in the Top 20 in the state.
Hopewell Valley edged WW-P North for 4th, 144-152. Claire Dumont had a huge race to finish 6th in 19:12, which was a massive 34-second Holmdel PR! Her time was 19th in the merged results and also ranks her at #4 on Hopewell Valley’s all-time Holmdel Park list. Several of Dumont’s teammates had fantastic races, too! Sydney Young finished just outside the top 10, getting 11th in 19:46 — that’s 25 places and 54 seconds better than last year. She was also the top sophomore in the race. Young is now 11th on Hopewell Valley’s all-time Holmdel Park rankings, and she’ll hope to keep moving up that list at the Meet of Champions next week. This was just her third race back from injury, and she still appears plenty fresh and on the rise, so it’s a definite possibility! Maddie LaChance also had a phenomenal race, getting 18th in 20:10. That’s a Holmdel PR by over 70 seconds.
West Windsor-Plainsboro North’s Allison Lee finished 2nd in 18:24, smashing her already-incredibly-fast Holmdel PR – and Holmdel school record – by 24 seconds! That was the third-fastest time of the day and puts her in the Top 70 all-time at the historic course. She finished second in her race behind Northern Burlington’s three-time champion Liliah Gordon (17:58), in an exact reversal of Lee’s margin of victory over Gordon from sectionals last week. Watch for things to even out next week and make for an intense Meet of Champions! Lee’s senior teammate Zui Chinchalkar also ran super well, finishing 4th in 19:11. This was the star senior’s 3rd Top-10 finish at the group championships, after having gotten 6th and 10th in prior years.
Ewing’s Teagan Walker finished 19th in 20:12. That’s a 9-second Holmdel PR – lowering her Ewing school record – and it’s also the senior’s highest-ever finish at the group championships, which she qualified for all four years.
Lawrence’s Izzy Meth has been nursing a knee injury in recent weeks, but she decided to give the group championships a go anyway and gain the experience. She still finished 26th in 20:22, which is a very solid time for someone not feeling 100%. And she was still one of the top sophomores in the race, too. She’ll be back for more!
Group 4 Girls
The Princeton girls team poses with their first ever state-championship trophy. | Courtesy of Corey Annan for NJ Advance Media.
The Princeton girls won their first ever group championship! In the toughest race of the day — featuring 7 out of the Top 20 teams in the state — Princeton won by 11 points over runner-up Ridgewood. As usual, Kajol Karra (8th in 18:26) and Grace Hegedus (10th in 19:32) set the tone with stellar frontrunning, and they both landed on the podium at groups for the first time. Ewoyn Deess (17th in 19:59) ran a 42-second PR to join the Holmdel sub-20 club. Thanks to additional PRs from Florica Eleches-Lipsitz (26th in 20:17) and Phoenix Roth (30th in 20:26), Princeton put all of its scorers in the Top 30. In fact, Princeton even put #6 Rosemary Warren (33rd in 20:32) and #7 Sevanne Knoch (39th in 20:44) ahead of everyone else’s fifth runner! Other teams had two or three fast girls, but no one came close to matching Princeton’s depth.
Non-Public A Girls
Notre Dame finished 12th in the girls Non-Public A race. Freshman star Alaina Sabo had an excellent Holmdel debut, getting 15th in 20:22. That ranks her 6th on the Irish’s all-time Holmdel leaderboard. Meghan Connolly and Valerie Cordero-Beckert finished together in 23:34, which was a nice course PR for Cordero-Beckert.
The Princeton Day girls placed 16th, led by Syona Gautam in 22:42 for 60th. Senior Natalia Soffer was just six places back, getting 66th in 23:10. Both of those girls set big Holmdel PRs and cracked the Top-10 on the Panther’s all-time Holmdel list.
Non-Public B Girls
Wilberforce took 2nd place in the Non-Public B championship. They were led by junior Laura Sallade, who finished 3rd in 19:50, which tied her Holmdel Park school record from Shore Coaches earlier this year. The Wolverines also got Top 10 finishes from Adeline Edwards (7th in 20:47) and Stella Blanchard (10th in 22:20).
Boys
Group 2 Boys
Allentown’s John O’Leary was the lone Mercer County runner in the boys Group 2 race, and he got 42nd in 17:47. That was just a few seconds off his Holmdel PR, but more importantly he got valuable championship-racing experience that will come in handy for his senior year.
Group 3 Boys
The West Windsor-Plainsboro North boys had a great team performance, averaging 17:20 and taking 6th place in Group 3. Freshman Agrim Jha (26th in 16:57) and senior Luke Ferrer (28th in 17:00) led the way with Top 30 finishes. Jha was one of just three freshmen to break 17:00 that day. Paul Wittenberg (44th in 17:15), Jordan Andrade (64th in 17:41) and Subomi Allison (73rd in 17:50) all ran Holmdel PRs by 20+ seconds.
Hopewell Valley placed 10th, led by Silas Allevik’s 16:59 for 27th place. They averaged 17:41, eighteen seconds faster than at Shore Coaches with the same lineup. Much of that improvement was thanks to senior Ethan Darst (75th in 17:51) and junior Colin Vickery (79th in 17:57) both breaking 18:00, with Vickery’s time being a 40-second PR.
Steinert finished 17th in Group 3. Although they finished one spot lower than last year at groups, they actually ran faster this year! Tyler Hurst accounts for a significant portion of that improvement, dropping his time from 17:50 last year to 17:04 this year, which was good for 31st place. The Spartan also got huge jumps from senior Nathaniel Bigger (from 18:59 to 18:17) and junior Adam Szpakowski (from 19:32 to 18:21). They and senior Nihar Kolachalama (18:21) all finished roughly together as a solid pack.
Group 4 Boys
West Windsor-Plainsboro South placed 8th with 230 points. Star senior Shravan Pradeep got Top 10 in the deepest and fastest race of the day, finishing 8th in 16:18. He cut 13 seconds off his time from Shore Coaches earlier this year. He now sits at #11 on WW-P South’s all-time Holmdel Park list, but he’ll have another shot to crack that Top 10 at the Meet of Champions next week!
The Pirates #2 runner this week was senior Aditya Deshpande (54th in 17:17), who ran 50 seconds faster than he ever had at Holmdel. One notable addition to the Pirate’s lineup was freshman Sean Maina. After tearing up the JV circuit for a couple of weeks – he handily won the MTCA freshman championship and then ran 17:32 at Thompson Park to take 2nd at the freshman state meet – he was promoted to the Pirate’s varsity squad for groups. He rewarded his coaches’ faith by running 17:55 for 86th place as their #5 runner.
WW-P South and WW-P North both averaged 17:20. No merged results have been posted yet, but the battle for top Mercer County team has got to be a close one!
Princeton was 11th with 315 points, edging out Elizabeth by just 1 point. Senior Felix Farrugia capped his high school XC career with his best race ever to get 31st in 16:55. That makes him the 4th-fastest Mercer County boy at Holmdel this year, and the 10th-fastest Princeton boy in the last 10+ years. His next two teammates across the line, Finn Wedmid (57th in 17:19) and Evan Raphael (82nd in 17:51), also cut 15-20 seconds off their times from Shore Coaches last month.
Hightstown’s Burke Thompson, a senior in his first year of XC, had never raced at Holmdel Park before. That didn’t faze him at all! He stuck right with the more experienced runners and finished 20th in 16:42. To put that time in perspective, it’s the 3rd-fastest any Mercer County boy has run since 2021, and it makes him #6 on Hightstown’s all-time list.
Non-Public A Boys
Notre Dame finished 9th in the boys Non-Public A race. They got excellent results from seniors Tarun Kovoor and Max Whittle, who showed their fitness at the NJCTC Championships last week and then backed it up with impressive results against tougher competition this week. Kovoor finished 17th in 16:53, the 8th-fastest by a Notre Dame runner at Holmdel. Max Whittle (30th in 17:14) gave the Irish two runners in the Top 30, running just as fast this week on this difficult course as he ever has at Thompson Park. Sophomore Timothy Ellingson (53rd in 18:03) also had a very impressive Holmdel debut.
Non-Public B Boys
Princeton Day won its first ever group championship! And they did it in convincing fashion, winning 58-93 over Rutgers Prep. Grayson McLaughlin, who has been so solid for the Panthers up front all season, led the way with 3rd place finish in 17:29, 34 seconds faster than he ran at this meet last year. And as always, Edward Letko wasn’t far behind, taking 26 seconds off his Holmdel PR to get 5th in 17:56. Alexander Chia (12th in 18:36) and Luke Nolte (19th in 19:03) gave Princeton Day four Top-20 finishers.
Wilberforce finished 5th with 148 points, just 5 points back from 3rd place. They were led by an outstanding race from sophomore Elias Edwards, who set a 10-second Holmdel Park PR and took 10th in 18:21. Sophomore Micah Brox and freshman Caed Wilson finished together in 19:32 for 27th and 28th.