The Randolph Cross-Country Invitational has been a huge draw for several years, attracting teams from all over the state and beyond on the opening weekend of the season, largely because of its electric atmosphere as it's the only XC meet in N.J. to race under the lights.
But, according to Meet Director Len Pietrewicz, the lights have been turned off for this year and the plug may be permanently pulled on the meet altogether.
Pietrewicz said the Randolph Invit., which has been around for four decades and has featured racing under the lights since the early's 2000's, won't be run at Freedom Park this year due to expenses. The meet, which began at Brundage Park before moving to Freedom in 2002, is now scheduled for Friday, Sept. 7 at 4 p.m. at Greystone Park, but now that's in jeopardy.
"There's been a lot of added expenses to run this meet at Freedom,'' said Pietrewicz. "Between what Randolph High School, the police, and Freedom Park, wanted to charge us, we couldn't afford to run the meet at Freedom anymore. We were run out of there. I'm really upset about this. So many teams came from all over the state to run under the lights. It's a real shame that it's come to this.''
Pietrewicz has secured Greystone, home of the Morris County and N.J. Sec. 2 meet, as a new home for the meet, but the status of meet is on shaky ground right now.
"We only have 11 teams entered right now, so it's 50-50 whether we will even have the meet at all,'' said a very disappointed Pietrewicz. "I'd like to get 20 teams if we can. We will make a decision within the next week or so. If we don't have it, that will be the end of the meet.''
If anyone is interested in competing at the Randolph Invit. at Greystone, please contact Pietrewicz at 201-841-0566 or at mctca@mctrack.org