Princeton Invite Series #3 and NJ JV-Novice Invitational Recaps
It’s groups week, but we didn’t have to wait for the weekend to see some great performances from Mercer County athletes. Here’s where local schools were in action:
Princeton Invitational Series #3. The last Jadwin meet of the year was on Tuesday, and the meet series went out with a bang. There were top-notch performances from all the teams that attended, which were a lot: Allentown, Hillsborough, Hun, Lower Merion, Peddie, Princeton, Stuart Country Day, Pennington, Trenton, WW-P North, and WW-P South. See the full results here, and catch a replay of 2L Race Services’ finish line livestream here.
NJ JV-Novice Invitational. On Wednesday night at the NJ JV-Novice Invitational, many runners from WW-P North, Hopewell Valley, and Ewing got their first chance to race on the beautiful track at Ocean Breeze. The result was tons of PRs! Full results here.
Unless otherwise noted, the highlights below are from Princeton Invitational Series #3, but I’ve also sprinkled in the most notable performances from the JV Invitational.
Girls Results
Girls 55m. Brie Davis-Owens (WW-P North, Sr.) won the JV Invitational in 7.53, which is a new PR and #8 in Mercer County. At the Princeton Invitational, Maddie Hamlin (Princeton, So.) took the win in 7.68, her second-best time this season. Simone Henriques (Princeton, Fr.) was runner-up in 7.83, beating out Logan Mills (WW-P South, Jr.) in 7.87 and Safiyyah Malik (Peddie, Jr.) in 7.90.
Girls 55mH. Saraiah Hoover (WW-P South, went under 9.2 for her fourth straight meet, taking the win in 9.18. She was followed by Zunica Zubah (Trenton, Sr.) in 9.55 for 2nd place. Lalla Sanoe (WW-P South, Jr.) was 4th in 9.94, while Yona Choksi (WW-P South, Fr.) slipped under 10 for the first time, running 9.98 for 5th place. At the JV Invitational, Ewing sophomores Lynsah Rejouis and Victoria Seaton placed 13th and 14th with new PRs of 10.31 and 10.42.
Girls 200m. At the JV Invitational, Brie Davis-Owens (WW-P North, Sr.) got her second win – and her second PR – of the day with a 26.33 in the 200m. Her teammate Nina Dixit (WW-P North, So.) also ran and set a PR of 27.26 for 4th place. In the Princeton Invitational 200m, the Pirate duo of Adama Turay (WW-P South, Sr.) and Claire Dumortier (WW-P South, Sr.) went 1-2 with times of 27.54 and 27.76. Simone Henriques (Princeton, Fr.) also broke 28, going 27.92 for 3rd place.
Girls 400m. Claire Dumortier (WW-P South, Sr.) ran a 1:02.01 to win the front end of her 400m/200m double. Lena Murray (Princeton, So.) sliced over a second off her open 400m PR, running 1:02.50 for 2nd place. Saraiah Hoover (WW-P South, Sr.) ran a season’s best of 1:03.85 for 3rd, and Naila Nelson (Allentown, Jr.) ran 1:04.87 to go under 1:05 for the first time indoors.
Girls 800m. In her first open 800m indoors, Kajol Karra (Princeton, Jr.) led wire-to-wire and won in 2:27.07. Behind her, Phoenix Roth (Princeton, So.) and Fatima El-Banna (Stuart Country Day, So.) had a back-and-forth battle for 2nd place, with Roth ultimately prevailing 2:29.74 to 2:30.68. At the JV Invitational, Evelyn Yang (WW-P North, So.) also went sub-2:30 for the first time with a PR of 2:29.21 for 5th place.
Girls 1600m. At the JV Invitational, Sara Secora (WW-P North, So.) led wire-to-wire for a dominant win in 5:22.66, which was a PR by three seconds. At the Princeton Invitational Series #3, Grace Hegedus (Princeton, So.) defended her victory from the #2 meet by winning in almost the exact same time, 5:27.98, Behind Hegedus, Rosemary Warren (Princeton, Fr.) ran 5:30.56 – her second 5:30 in five days – to just hold off Emilia Wroblewski (Allentown, Sr.), who missed sectionals but is back and showed good form with her 5:31.27.
Girls 3200m. In one of the fastest races of the day, Allison Lee (WW-P North, Jr.) paced her teammate Zui Chinchalkar (WW-P North, Sr.) to a quick time in the 3200m. Lee crossed the line first in 11:11.42, followed immediately by Chinchalkar in 11:11.61. That was a big indoor PR for Chinchalkar, and just a few seconds off her outdoor PR. Courtney Cane (Peddie, Sr.) – who rarely runs the 3200m – stuck onto the Knights’ hot pace for over 2000m and, although she fell off slightly towards the end, she was rewarded with a great PR of 11:21.71.
Girls 4x800m. West Windsor-Plainsboro North ran a stacked team (Zui Chinchalkar, Allison Lee, Sara Secora, Vivian Ma) and won in 9:51.44, which is #22 in New Jersey. West Windsor-Plainsboro South also ran well and took 2nd place in 10:20.43, a season’s best by 25 seconds.
Girls Jumps. Kirsten Brenya (Stuart Country Day, Jr.) had a third-attempt clearance at 5-0 to break her PR and take the win over Amanda Hoglund (Allentown, Sr.), who finished 2nd in 4-10. Adama Turay (WW-P South, Sr.) won the long jump in 17-5, and Isabelle Andre (Allentown, Sr.) went 32-1 in the triple jump to PR by an inch.
Girls Shot Put. The girls shot put featured 3 of the only 13 New Jersey girls who have thrown over 40’ this season: Sonjay Baylor-Reeves (Trenton, Sr.), Anna Casciano (Hun, Jr.), and Angela Volkova (Hillsborough, Sr.). And all three girls threw over 40’ again here! Baylor-Reeves came away with the win after a huge throw of 42-6.5, her second-longest ever. Volkova took 2nd palace with a PR of 40-10, while Casciano threw 40-1.5 to go over 40’ for her second straight meet.
Boys Results
Boys 55m. It was a good day for the 55m boys at Jadwin on Tuesday, where almost all of the top 20 set PRs! A trio of Hillsborough boys swept the first three spots in the fastest heat, but King Lui (Pennington, So.) was just 0.01 behind with a 6.84 for 4th place. He was followed by Cedric Mbachu (Allentown, Sr.) in 6.88 and Aydun Hines (WW-P South, Jr.) in 6.90, and Kyle Carr (Princeton, So.) in 6.91. In the next-fastest heat, another Hillsborough boy took the win just barely over nice races from Ian Borges (Peddie, Sr.) in 6.91 and Andrew Foreman (Princeton, Jr.) in 6.92.
Boys 55mH. Jelani Cine (Peddie, Sr.) won the 55mH in a photo finish with a time of 7.92. Dylan Voehl (Allentown, Jr.) took the second heat in 8.93 in what appears to be his first ever hurdles race.
Boys 200m. Gavin Alvarez (Allentown, Sr.) continued his hot streak and had a nice tune-up for groups this weekend by blasting a 23.02, a PR by more than 0.2. That moves him up to #3 in Mercer County. Ian Borges (Peddie, Sr.) ran a PR of 23.57 for 2nd place, ahead of Aydun Hines (WW-P South, Jr.) in 23.70. Andrew Foreman (Princeton, Jr.) and Kyle Carr (Princeton, So.) also broke 24 with times of 23.85 and 23.93.
Boys 400m. Jelani Cine (Peddie, Sr.) doubled back from his 55mH win to take 2nd place in the 400m with a 52.49. That’s his first time running the open 400m this season, though he’s run some fast splits on Peddie’s county-leading 4x400m. Speaking of which, Luke Chon (Peddie, Jr.) and Dasyer Bullock (Peddie, Jr.) placed 4th and 5th here with times of 53.62 and 54.75.
Boys 800m. Dylan Patel (Peddie, Sr.) ran 2:04.13 for 2nd place at Princeton Invitational. Agrim Jha took 3rd place in 2:07.23 for his first open 800m as a high schooler, just ahead of Luca Romanelli (Peddie, Jr.) in 2:07.67. At the JV Invitational, Akash Myadam (WW-P North, So.) ran a PR of 2:08.26 to get 5th place.
Boys 1600m. Finn Wedmid (Princeton, So.) kicked hard to slice a second off his PR and take 3rd in the Princeton Invitational with a 4:42.03. Three more local runners followed him en route to PRs of their own: Lachlan Arnold (Princeton, Fr.) was 4th in 4:43.97, John O’Leary (Allentown, Jr.) was 5th in 4:44.63, and Amrit Moehringer (Allentown, Sr.) was 6th in 4:45.45. Braedyn Capone (Princeton, Jr.) ran 4:46.04 to give Princeton three boys under 4:50. At the JV Invitational, Veejhay Roy (WW-P North, Jr.) had a nice run of 4:43.75 for 9th place. And at a Monmouth University meet on Wednesday, Adam Szpakowski (Steinert, Jr.) ran 4:57.26 for a full mile – despite getting clipped at the start and having to run with just one shoe!
Boys 3200m. Aron Zola (WW-P South, Fr.) ran his first ever 3200m, and it was a great one – he went 10:21.19 for 2nd place at the Princeton Invitational Series #3. Sarth Shah (Allentown, So.) also PR’d with a 10:41.28 for 3rd. Harsh Sharma (WW-P South, Fr.) won a last-lap duel against Ziyang Ling (Princeton, Jr.) for 4th place, 10:47.51 to 10:50.18.
Boys 4x800m. West Windsor-Plainsboro North (Subomi Allison, Luke Ferrer, Jordan Andrade, Agrim Jha) took the win in 8:24.89, led off by a 2:02 split from Allison. Trenton was 3rd with a season’s best of 9:11.57.
Boys Jumps. In the long jump, Sullivan Spagnoli (Princeton, So.) flew 20-4.25 for the win, which is a big season’s best and a new PR. Tahmere Brown (Pennington, Fr.) took 2nd place in 19-1, his second time surpassing 19’. Ishaq Inayat (Princeton, Sr.) went 39-10 for 2nd in the triple jump, Ellington Hinds (Princeton, Jr.) won the high jump with a second-attempt clearance of 5-8, and Rayyan Shabab (WW-P South, Jr.) tied his PR of 9-0 in the pole vault.
Boys Shot Put. Sean Wilton (Princeton, Sr.) won the shot put with a big throw of 59-2, meaning he’s now thrown over 59’ in five of his last six meets. He beat out two of the other best throwers in the area: Parker Hamilton (Peddie, Sr.) was 2nd in 49-10.5 and Shine Williams (Trenton, Sr.) was 3rd in 45.2.5.