The Morris Hills boys, led by rising star Domenick Wallace, won its first title in more than a decade, the Randolph girls captured its fourth straight title, and the Mendham boys smashed a meet record at the Morris County Relays on Tuesday night at Drew University in Madison.
Wallace, a junior who gave up wrestling this season, continued his remarkable rookie indoor season with a spectacular and gutsy performance to spark the Morris Hills boys to a 46-39 over runner-up Randolph. It's the first title for Morris Hills since 2008.
After missing five days of training with illness, Wallace led off the 4x800 (2:04), anchored the winning SMR (2:01), and anchored the winning 4x400 with a 50.8 carry-lightning fast on Drew's slow track.
Wallace has all the makings of a becoming a state champion and a stud on the national level. He has already run a 1:21.80 in the 600, which is US#4 this season. Don't forget the name - Domenick Wallace!!!!
Also for Morris Hills, senior Captain Angel Gonzalez-Marquez had two throws over 50 feet with a PR of 51-10 to his help his team place in the shot put, and junior Juan Cortez led off the fourth-place 4x200, the winning SMR (53.4) and the first-place 4x400 (52.5).
The top boys relay highlight of the meet was provided the Mendham boys DMR as Sam Marran (3:12), Chris Falzarano (54 point.), Ryan Kear (2:04), and Villanova-bound Jack Jennings (4:24) combined to run a NJ#2/US#3 10:37.33. That broke the meet mark of 10:38.65 set last year by Mendham.
The top individual field event performance of the meet was turned in by senior Chris Tavarone, who unloaded a huge PR bomb of 55-0 to vault into No. 4 on the NJ list for this season as he led Morris Knolls to the boys team shot put title. Tavarone's previous PR of 51-8 3/4 came on Dec. 23 at the Passarelli Invit. at Drew.
In the girls competition, Randolph increased its county record total to 20 team titles with a 60-46 victory over runner-up Mendham.
Randolph was led by senior Karen Hull, senior Meredith Finley and junior Chloe Whiting.
Hull, one of the state's most versatile and underrated stars, was a member of four winning teams. She blasted a 7.4 when she came from way back on the anchor leg to get the win, and ran on the 4x200 (27.7), the SMR (27.3 leading off), and also cleared 5-2 in the high jump.
Finley anchored both the DMR (5:22) and SMR (2:25), and Whiting ran on the DMR (2:32) and led off the SMR (63.0) for the Rams. Maya Wilkins had a solid 3:57 1,200 carry in the DMR for Randolph.
