Week 5 Recaps | New Jersey Rocks Manhattan and More

Alright the checkpoint meet that Manhattan is each season has come and gone. Now that the races have ended, the results posted, and the medals given lets take a look at the merges and stats in front of us.

Boys Notes

For the boys individuals New Jersey's leader was David Rosas who finished sixth in the Eastern States race running 12:27, also top ten in that race Elliot Gindi of Ocean Twp in eighth 12:29. Rosas' time ranked him sixth among varsity runners when including other states and the meet as a whole was led by Pennsylvania's Noah Affolder of Carlisle who won the Eastern States race with a time of 12:11. 

In total 15 boys went under 13 minutes for the Garden State, joining Rosas and Gindi in the top five were Billy Byrne of Ridgewood 12:31, Jordan Brannan of Colts Neck 12:32, and Matt Grossman of Millburn 12:33. 

The team merge results pit many of the top teams in our state who will be competing for the state title against each other. Christian Brothers Academy, who won the Eastern States race for the first time since 2013, led the New Jersey only merge with 128 points a team average of 13:12 and a split of 48 seconds. They were led by Brian Hill who had the sixth best time of the meet for our state at 12:42.

Right there with the Christian Brothers are the Colts Neck boys who scored just five points behind at 133 averaging a time of 13:07 and splitting 1:12 between their top five. Colts Neck won their Varsity B division race with 46 points. Princeton and Ridgewood also right there in the New Jersey merge scoring 145 and 155. Princeton went head to head with CBA in that Eastern States race placing second where it should be noted they both faced a lot more traffic up front.

The overall merge was won by St John's from Massachusetts who scored 378. Christian Brothers finished in third with 479 points, Colts Neck came up fourth with 490. Five teams from New Jersey finished top ten overall in the merge!

Girls Notes

The girls were led by Alyssa Aldridge of Mainland Regional who finished 11th in the Eastern States race with a time of 15:00, the 13th ranked performance of the meet. Not too far behind was Lauren Wagner of Voorhess who ran a huge personal best of 15:06 to win the Varsity A race, she is second for New Jersey and 19th overall for the meet. Briana Gess of Haddonfield ranked third on the state list with her second place finish in the Varsity E race running 15:09. Overall the meet was won by New York's Katelyn Tuohy of North Rockland who finished the victor the Eastern States race with a 14:12. 

As we move to the team stories the Ridge girls dominated New Jersey performances in the state only merge scoring 52 points and averaging 15:47 with a 41 second split. When including other states they come in fourth with 419 points. Ridge was led by Caitlin Haggard in the Eastern States race where she placed 25th running 15:29, teammate Catherine Giuseffi right behind her in 26th with 15:33.

Colts Neck, Red Bank Regional, Haddonfield, and Mendham make up the rest of the top five teams in the Jersey merge all scoring under 200 points. 

Check out the full lists below!

These merges only use times from the Varsity Letter races and the Eastern States race.