South Brunswick Sweeps GMC Relay Championships

Middlesex County Relays
Jim Lambert


Full Results 

South Brunswick's superior depth and balance once again fueled the Vikings to another sweep of the team titles in dominating fashion at Saturday's Greater Middlesex Conference Relays at the Bennett Center in Toms River.   

The South Brunswick girls scored in all nine events on the way to its sixth straight championship and 11th title in the past 12 years, outscoring runner-up Sayreville, 60-35.  

On the boys side, the Vikings placed in the top three in seven of the nine events and scored in eight events en route to an overpowering 76-44 victory over second-place East Brunswick.   

The highlight of the meet for the South Brunswick girls were the field events. Hannah Trpisovsky (9-0) and Isabel Sananes (8-0) both cleared personal bests to win that event for the Vikings, and high jumpers Khushi Gupta (5-0) and Melanie LaCorte (5-0) each tied their PRs to capture the gold.

Yashika Chidirala had a big day on the track for the South Brunswick girls. She anchored the third-place distance medley relay with a 5:26 split, and the third-place sprint medley with a 2:29, both indoor PRs. 

The South Brunswick boys, led by Adam Gorka, Vidhur Polam, Majid Howard-Baker, and Javier Santiago, won the DMR, the 4x200, and the pole vault.

In the DMR, Gorka cranked out a 50.8 400 leg, and Polam anchored with a 4:31.2 carry. Howard-Baker, a junior, blew away the field with a 23.0 second leg on the gold medal winning 4x200, one of his four medals. He also earned a gold in the pole vault (11-6) and picked up silver medals in the shuttle hurdles and sprint medley. Javier Santiago cleared 13-6, the second best performance of the meet, in the pole vault. 

Also in the pole vault, juniors Jenna Engels of Piscataway and Brian McSweeney of East Brunswick, two of the state's best, both came up with impressive performances in the vault.

Engels, who has cleared a NJ#3 11-1 1/4 this season, made a meet best 11-0, and McSweeney, tied for NJ#3 with a 15-6, went over the bar at 15-0, the top performance of the day.