Mercer County Boys Rankings for October 30
The latest rankings from Track Mercer! Here are 7 boys teams and 10+ boys who have risen to the top of Mercer County. Results at the CVC Divisional Championships and the CVC Championships get the most weight in today’s rankings, though regular season-performances are not entirely discounted. These rankings also include non-CVC schools, which require a little more speculation since they don’t go head-to-head with CVC teams as often anymore.
Think that I missed or underestimated someone? Let me know in the comments below or on social media!
Note that these rankings were written before the Prep State Championships. Read the girls rankings here.
Boys Teams
#1 West Windsor-Plainsboro North
West Windsor-Plainsboro North finally unveiled their full top line-up, and it’s a powerful one. At both divisionals and CVC Championships, the Knights put six boys across the line before anyone else even had four! In addition to stars Luke Ferrer and Agrim Jha up front, one underrated player is sophomore Paul Wittenberg, whose first year running varsity has already seen him go 16:19 at Robbinsville and become an indispensable low-stick for the Knights.
#2 West Windsor-Plainsboro South
Despite not getting the win at divisionals, West Windsor-Plainsboro South did beat out WW-P North for the team average course record – and that’s no small consolation prize! Shravan Pradeep, Kevin Lang, and Aditya Deshpande are the best top-three in the area, and their next four runners are all ranked roughly 30th to 40th. That’s a more crowded range, so the Pirates need just two of those four guys to cut 10-15 seconds off their times and they’ll make up the deficit on WW-P North in a hurry.
#3 Princeton
3rd is a toss up. Princeton, who didn’t race their varsity squad at divisionals, lost to Hopewell Valley by 1 point at the CVC Championships. But Princeton had the better average time by 4 seconds, and a couple of Princeton’s scoring runners had off days (at least compared to their races on this course two weeks ago). For now, it seems like Princeton would beat the Bulldogs more often than not, but we’ll see what the merge looks like at sectionals and group championships!
#4 Hopewell Valley
As mentioned above, the Hopewell Valley boys put together an impressive race to take 3rd at CVCs by 1 point. A big factor in that race was #5 runner Julian Hiraldo’s great race – he ran almost the same time at Thompson Park as he had at the much-faster Robbinsville course the week before. Another decisive moment was Ethan Darst kicking past two runners in the final 20 meters.
#5 Lawrenceville
Lawrenceville actually started the year by beating Princeton at the Jerry Hart Invitational (though the Tigers were without Felix Farrugia for that one), and they’ve only improved since then. In fact, they returned to the Peddie Golf Course two weeks ago and averaged 17:03, fifteen seconds faster than at Jerry Hart. That’s a fast course, but so is Robbinsville HS, and 17:03 would’ve put them firmly ahead of Allentown at the CVC Divisional Championship.
#6 Allentown
5th is also a close one. Allentown finished well ahead of Steinert in the CVC Divisionals merge, but then the Redbirds had an off day at the CVC Championships, where they averaged 15 seconds slower than on this course two weeks ago. That was partly because of a game-time decision to scratch one of their top runners and get him ready to race at sectionals instead. If they’re healthy at sectionals, Allentown will be favored over Steinert.
#7 Steinert
Steinert is having a great year, with the highlight (so far) being their 5th place finish at the CVC Championships. Their star runner, Tyler Hurst, is dropping incredible times, and his success must be motivating for his teammates, because they have also made huge improvements. At the CVC Championships, the Spartan averaged over 30 seconds faster than last year. At the Divisional Championship, they averaged over 1 minute faster than last year.
Boys Individuals
#1 Shravan Pradeep (WW-P South) shattered the course record at Robbinsville with a blistering 15:17. He backed that up with a 17-second win at the CVC Championship, even after only letting loose in the last mile. He’s been doing his long runs at Thompson Park and Holmdel Park this year, and it’ll be exciting to see what he can do on those courses in the coming weeks.
#2 Tyler Hurst (Steinert) was on nobody’s preseason list of candidates to break 16:00, so watching him go 15:55 at divisionals was awesome. He resolved a lingering knee issue and was finally able to put together a full summer and fall of hard XC training this year, and he’s churning out incredible performances as a result.
#3 Luke Ferrer (WW-P North) admits that he always takes a little while to get his season rolling, but he’s definitely rolling now. He very nearly snagged 2nd place at the CVC Championship with a new Thompson Park PR of 16:47, and he’s on pace to achieve his goal of climbing into the Knights’ all-time XC leaderboards.
#4 Agrim Jha (WW-P North) was one of the most consistently impressive runners over these past two weeks, getting 3rd at divisionals (in a PR of 16:06) and 5th at the CVC Championships (16:52). To say that the freshman has had no problem adjusting to high school XC would be an understatement.
#5 Tarun Kovoor (Notre Dame) might’ve had an off day at the divisional meet (where he was 7th in 16:32) but he bounced back quickly with a great finish at the CVC Championships, where he was 4th in 16:51.
#6 Silas Allevik (Hopewell Valley) won the Valley Division individual title, but his time would’ve been just 8th in the Colonial Division. Still, at the CVC Championship, he proved that he can run with anyone, taking 6th place and beating many of those Colonial Division boys who had run faster at Robbinsville.
#7 Taksh Gupta (Lawrenceville) had a dual meet at the Peddie Golf Course the day after many CVC runners dropped fast times at Robbinsville, and he dropped a 16:17 of his own – which would’ve been 5th at Robbinsville. He followed that up the next week with a 16:39 to tie the course record on his slightly tougher home course. Those were both solo efforts, so hopefully he’ll have someone to push him even harder at Prep States or MAPLs this week.
#8 Kevin Lang (WW-P South) has been running consistent high-mileage weeks since summer training, and that’s been paying dividends this postseason, where he’s set big 5K PRs at Thompson Park (16:55 for 7th at the CVC Championships) and overall (16:12 at the divisional meet).
#9 Aditya Deshpande (WW-P South) finished just behind his teammate Lang in each of the past two races – 5th at divisionals and 8th at the CVC Championships. He’s running even faster now than at the Six Flags Wild Safari Invitational, which is a great sign for the Pirates.
#10 Burke Thompson (Hightstown) was 9th at the CVC Championships in 16:56. Even though others were well ahead of him at the divisional meet, Thompson’s latest result suggests that (1) he continues rapidly trending upwards and (2) he can excel on the hilly courses that matter most this postseason.
Bubble: Finnegan Curley (Hopewell Valley) finished just .10 behind Allevik at divisionals … Princeton’s Braedyn Capone, Finn Wedmid, and Felix Farrugia ran the whole way together at the CVC Championships and went 10-11-12 … Paul Wittenberg (WW-P North) was 6th at the divisional meet in 16:19.