New Website Feature: Champions
Happy first week of spring track! Before looking ahead to this season, let’s look back – way back – at past seasons with a new website feature: Champions!
These are lists of Mercer County winners at NJSIAA championships and Mercer County championships for XC, winter track, and spring track dating back to the 1920s. They include:
MoCs individual champions
Groups team champions (and individuals for XC)
Sectionals team champions
Mercer County team AND individual champions
Mercer County record holders in track, field, and relay events
Some names have been on these lists for almost 100 years. This season, who’s going to etch their names as champions for the next 100 years?
Special thanks to Michael Walker (former Robbinsville coach, current TCNJ assistant coach) for compiling and providing all these results!
Here are some fun facts from Mercer County spring track history:
The Trenton Catholic boys were the first team to win a championship, prevailing in the Parochial A group back in 1934! Princeton has the second-oldest title, winning the Group 2 Championship in 1938.
The Lawrence girls were the first Mercer County girls team to win a group championship, doing so in Group 2 back in 1979.
The Notre Dame girls four-peated at the Parochial A group championships from 1982 to 1985, and then they won eight straight Parochial A titles from 1993 to 2000.
The first boys Mercer County Championship was held in 1948. Princeton won the inaugural team title, and Dick Begley from Trenton Catholic swept the 100y/220y sprint double. His 100y time was 10.0 – hand timed, of course!
Girls started racing at the Mercer County Championships in 1974, with just a 100y, 220y, and 440y that year. The first full girls meet was the next year, which Hopewell Valley won, led by distance legend Hillary Noden.
The 2003 Trenton boys team was incredible. Using at least 7 different sprinters, they set 4 county relay records that still stand today – the 4x100m, 4x200m, 4x400m, and shuttle hurdles.
Trenton legend Wendy Vereen still holds the county records in the 100m and 200m from the mid-1980s. She was also part of Trenton’s county record 4x100m and 4x200m teams.