Full Results | Meet Merge | Thompson Park Rankings
Freehold Township and Holmdel pulled of team sweeps, Malual Mu of Trenton and Chloe Taylor of Princeton dropped the fastest times and there were two dramatic finishes at Saturday's Fall Classic at Thompson Park in Jamesburg.
Mu, the N.J. Meet of Champions 1,600 winner last indoor season, continued his torrid season when he ran a personal best for any course of 15:48.4 to edge Brendan O'Toole of North Penn of Pa. (15:50.9) in the boys Large School race.
The best team battle of the day came in the girls Large School race.
Freehold Township trailed Princeton by 16 points after each team had three runners across, but Freehold's Ashley Sibilia and Leanne Kelly picked up 17 combined points on Princeton at the No. 4 and No. 5 spots to complete the dramatic comeback as Freehold rallied to win, 65-66 over Princeton. Senior Chloe Taylor led a potent 1-4-5 frontal attack for Princeton by winning in 19:25.
In the boys Large School team race, Freehold Township had a remarkable 1-5 spread of 17 seconds as they went 4-5-8-9-10 to defeat North Penn, 36-51. Junior Nick Lundberg led the charge for Freehold Township, which averaged 16:30 and also won the team merge, by placing 4th in 16:21.
In the Small School Division, Holmdel swept, Drew Maher won the boys race in 16:29.3 and sophomore Emily Levonas won the girls race in 19:49.9 to spark Holmdel to the team title.
Led by Levonas, Holmdel went 1-3-5-8-12 and averaged 20:36 to defeat runner-up Rumson, 29-58, and win the team merge.
The Holmdel boys, which averaged 17:09, also used a very tight pack to win as the Hornets went 5-6-8-9-11 and put seven runners in front of Metuchen's No. 5 runner to win the team title, 39-48 over Metuchen. The two teams were tied after four runners, but Holmdel's No. 5 runner Arun Movva finished nine spots ahead of Metuchen's No. 5 man to secure the win for Holmdel.