Ridgewood Sweeps, Dubac, Armstrong Lead North Jersey Champs

Ridgewood brought an impressive team split to the line on Saturday.

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Looking for the perfect example of how to run a controlled team race that looks more like a workout while still rolling to a team title.

Well, look no further than the Ridgewood girls, who put on a pack-running clinic and reminded everyone why they are the No. 1 ranked team in the state with an eye-opening performance at Saturday's North Jersey Championships at Garret Mountain.

Ridgewood, which had its top guns ease off the gas while using this race as a tune-up for the upcoming sectional championships, packed up and had a ridiculous 1-5 compression of eight seconds!! Yup, that's right-eight seconds!!!

Ridgewood went 3-4-5-6-7 in the Pod 2 race on the way to a 20-47 victory over a very strong Immaculate Heart Academy team.

The top five for Ridgewood were junior AnnaMarie Tretola, third in 20:05, senior Sarah Policano, fourth in 20:06, junior Lily Williams, fifth in 20:07, junior Olivia Shattuck, sixth in 20:08, and junior Caroline Deiss, seventh in 20:13.

A Ridgewood vs. Haddonfield matchup could be epic! Haddonfield is ranked No. 2 in the state.

Nathan Armstrong led the day from Pod 1 with his 16:21 performance.

The Pod 2 Division featured a pair of sweeps.

Senior Mia Dubac of Clifton continued her torrid season by winning the Pod 2 girls race in 19:02, the top girls time of the day, and the red hot Jacob Heredia of Clifton was the boys winner in 16:24.

The No. 20 ranked Ridgewood boys made it a team sweep for the Maroons in Pod 2 with a very impressive 44-63 victory over Clifton. 

Ridgewood put four runners across the line before Clifton's No. 2 man and snatched up places 3-4-6-9-24 and averaged a meet best 17:14. Junior Sean Fortunato led the surge for Ridgewood by placing third in 16:41, a 45 second PR at Garret.

The Pod 3 Division featured a sweep of the individuals titles as junior Cali Marck (a huge PR on any course of 20:59) and senior Richard Weissenborn (17:05) of Park Ridge/Emerson finished first. Marck's victory triggered a 1-3-8-11-12 finish for Park Ridge/Emerson, which outscored Mt. St. Dominic, 29-59, for the girls team title.

The Newark Academy boys, the Non-Public B state champs last year, reeled off a remarkable 2-3-4-5-6 finish on the way to a 15-71 victory in Pod 3 over runner-up Eastern Christian. Newark Academy finished with a perfect score because Weissenborn's team didn't score.

The top individual boys performance of the meet came from Pompton Lakes senior Nathan Armstrong, the Pod 1 champion in 16:21, which matches the PR he ran at Garret to place second at the Passaic County Championships last year.

In the Pod 1 team competition, the Demarest boys defeated Hasbrouck Heights, 62-77, and freshman Christina Allen crossed first in 19:03 to help lead the River Dell girls to a 54-81 victory over runner-up Mahwah.

Note: This meet features teams from just the NJIC and Big North Conferences. Only North Jersey Schools were invited. The fastest 10 teams, all the race champions, and a total of 20 individual runners from the entire meet advanced to the North Jersey Finale next Saturday at Garret.