Week 3 Highlights: Ocean Breeze Holiday Festival, SJTCA #5, and Egg Club

Happy holidays! The winter break doesn’t mean a break from winter track, and this week’s festivities didn’t stop athletes from producing great performances at a few different meets. Here’s where Mercer County schools were in action this week:

• SJTCA #5 (Monday, December 23). This was the season opener for Trenton, but Ewing and Notre Dame also ran in this meet at Ocean Breeze. The meet held just relays and field events.

• The Egg Club Invitational (Friday, December 27). Nottingham and eighteen other schools competed at this meet, which was primarily for freshmen and any athletes who have not medaled in a varsity event.

• The Ocean Breeze Holiday Festival (Friday, December 27). This was the biggest meet of the weekend. It was held at Ocean Breeze and featured 200+ schools from across the Northeast. Ewing, Lawrence, Princeton Day, WW-P North, and WW-P South competed here.

Here are some of the top performances at these meets.

Girls Results

Girls 55m. Samya Jenkins (Lawrence) finished 13th at Ocean Breeze in 7.53, just 0.01 off her PR. Angel Johnson (Ewing) was 25th in 7.69, which was a small PR for her.

Girls 55mH. Brie Davis-Owens (WW-P North) finished 9th at Ocean Breeze. She barely missed making the finals, but she still got a nice PR. Mercer County put four other girls in the top 20: Bryana Mason (Ewing) – a freshman in her first indoor meet – was 12th in 9.03, Angel Johnson (Ewing) was 15th in 9.15, Alicia Riggins (Lawrence) was 16th in 9.15, and Saraiah Hoover (WW-P South) was 17th in 9.16.  

Girls 400m. In the Ocean Breeze invitational 400m, WW-P South’s Adama Turay was 13th in 60.72, and her teammate Claire Dumortier was 14th in an indoor PR of 61.39. 

Girls 2 Mile. Teagan Walker (Ewing) ran 11:36 to finish 7th the invitational 2 Mile at Ocean Breeze. This early-season result already matches her indoor 3200m PR from last winter.

Girls Long Jump / Triple Jump. In the Ocean Breeze triple jump, Adama Turay (WW-P South) took 4th place at Ocean Breeze with a season’s best of 17-6. In the long jump, Jada Sands (WW-P North) finished 11th after jumping 30-7.25 to set an indoor PR. 

Girls Shot Put. Trenton’s Sonjay Baylor-Reeves opened her season with a bang, winning SJTCA with a throw of 40-10.25. That’s just her second time over 40’ and her first time doing it indoors. She’s currently #4 in New Jersey and #21 in the USA. At Ocean Breeze, sophomore Jayla Little (Ewing) threw 29-4.5 and freshman Zoey DeSouza (Ewing) threw 28-10.

Girls 4x200m. At Ocean Breeze, WW-P North ran 1:51.41 to finish 16th, and Lawrence was right behind them in 1:54.13. Nottingham took 3rd at Egg Club in a time of 1:57.59.

WW-P North’s Zui Chinchalkar gets the baton from Vivian Ma going into the anchor leg of the 4×800m at the Ocean Breeze Holiday Festival. | Derrick Dingle for MileSplit

Girls 4x800m. WW-P North (Sara Secora, Fatima Arastu, Vivian Ma, and Zui Chinchalkar) took 3rd at Ocean Breeze in 10:10. Chinchalkar moved from 10th to 3rd with a 2:20.92 anchor leg, which was the fastest split in the race.

Girls SHR. In the shuttle hurdle relay at SJTCA, Ewing (Bryana Mason, Angel Johnson, Karis Crossland, and Lynsah Rejouis) took 3rd out of 13 teams with a time of 37.21 for 4x51.5m.

Girls SMR. Notre Dame (Isabella Daley, D’Njah Tatum, Ava Fallon, and Alaina Sabo) finished 3rd out of 26 teams in the SMR at SJTCA, with a time of 4:32.67. Ewing was just a few seconds behind the whole way, finishing 6th in 4:36.12.

Girls DMR. At Ocean Breeze, WW-P North (Sara Secora, Nina Dixit, Vivian Ma, and Zui Chinchalkar) finished 2nd in 13:15. Three of those girls were doubling back from the 4x800m, including Chinchalkar, who ran 5:18 on the anchor leg.

Boys Results

Boys 55m. Dasan Jones (Ewing) was the top Mercer County boy at Ocean Breeze, winning his heat in 6.79 and taking 21st overall. Jaquann Coleman (Lawrence) ran 6.95 to break 7 for the first time, and his teammate Matin Mahmoud ran a PR of 7.00. At Egg Club, Mathias Doliet (Nottingham) took 2nd in a PR of 6.97. Doliet also placed 3rd in the 300m with a 39.80.

Boys 55mH. At Ocean Breeze, Tristan Jusino Lansing (Lawrence) ran 7.83 to win his prelim and make the finals, where he placed 8th. Calvin Kallie (Ewing) and Alexander Nikolov (Lawrence) both ran 8.25, a nice PR for each of them.

Boys 400m. In the invitational 400m at Ocean Breeze, Julius Kinsler (WW-P South) placed 7th in a big PR of 50.21. That’s his first time under 51 in the open 400m, indoors or out.

Boys Triple Jump. Matin Mahmoud (Lawrence) won the triple jump at Ocean Breeze in a 14-inch PR of 45-10.5, which is a new school record, #2 in NJ, and #19 in the USA. He actually had three different jumps over 45’ on Friday. Arnav Grover (WW-P North) jumped 38-10.5 to PR by over three feet and finish in 13th place.

Boys High Jump. Bryce Marsh (Notre Dame) finished 4th in the high jump after clearing 5-10. Nolan Schmitz (Notre Dame) tied his PR of 5-8 for 7th place.

Boys Shot Put. At Ocean Breeze, Kyle Coombs (Ewing) PR’d by over 18 inches to finish 21st in 39-9.25.

Boys 4x200m. Ewing was the top Mercer County 4x200m team at Ocean Breeze, running 1:37.54. Lawrence wasn’t far behind – their varsity team ran 1:38.56, and they even had a sophomore team that ran 1:39.74 to get 3rd in the sophomore division.  

Boys 4x400m. Notre Dame (Aldric Crawford, Max Whittle, Christopher Young, Nolan Schmitz) took 6th out of 25 teams at SJTCA with a time of 3:34.12.

Boys 4x800m. At Ocean Breeze, WW-P North (Sai Polepalle, Jordan Andrade, Subomi Allison, and Luke Ferrer) won the 4x8 in 8:28. Allison crushed the third leg, running a 2:01.50 – the fastest split in the race – to bring the Knights from 6th up to 1st. WW-P North’s freshman team also won their division in 9:09. At SJTCA, Notre Dame (Max Whittle, Diego Nunez-Castaneda, Simeon Salins, and Deagan Hopkins) finished 3rd with a time of 8:34. They had three boys go sub 2:10, including a 2:03.67 from their second leg.

Boys SHR. Notre Dame (Aldric Crawford, Bryce Marsh, Nolan Schimtz, and Christopher Young) took home the win in the 4x55m shuttle hurdle relay at SJTCA. Their time of 31.32 is 2nd-fastest in school history.

Boys SMR. In the sprint medley relay at SJTCA, Ewing (Dasan Jones, Domonique Jones, Nahdir Guinyard, and Ibrahim Songu) took 5th out of 21 teams with a time of 3:54.55.