New faces produced statement races for the Union Catholic girls, and Ryan Cichocki and the North Hunterdon boys turned in sparkling performances at Saturday's Roxbury Invitational that was run in steamy conditions at Horseshoe Lake Park in Succasunna.
Union Catholic made the biggest splash as the Vikings ruled the day by collecting four team championships and winning five individuals titles. The North Hunterdon boys made their presence felt by capturing the Fastest 4 team title.
Let's get right into the amazing performance by the UC girls, who dropped a bomb and showed that they may be even better than their preseason No. 3 state ranking.
In the Fastest 4 race, UC went 1-2-3-6 and averaged 18:42 to runaway with the team title with 11 points. Junior Peyton Hollis made a remarkable XC debut by winning the race in 18:18. Senior Kaleigh Gunsiorowski was a couple strides behind in second with a time of 18:19 (70 seconds faster than her time at this race last year), and junior Courtney Kaiser, also making her high school XC debut, was third in 18:24. UC's fourth runner (only four runners score in the race) was Maameyaa Nyinah, sixth with a huge PR of 19:47.
The UC girls also picked up wins from freshman Ella Solorzano, who ran 19:37 to lead her team to victory in the Future 4 Race, and from newcomer Caitlin Toy, who ran 23:15 to spark UC to the JV team championship. Toy, running her first high school XC race, lost a lot of time and the lead when she and several other runners veered off course. But she put together a huge surge over the final mile to complete the comeback win.
On the boys side, Cichocki, a senior at Union Catholic, burned a 15:45 (a whopping 73 seconds faster then his time on this course last year) and sophomore teammate Evan Weber ran a PR of 15:51 to finished 1-2 in the Fastest 4 Race, but North Hunterdon, ranked No. 12 in the state, went 3-4-6-16 and averaged 16:23 to rally for a 29-36 victory over Union Catholic. UC, the defending Meet of Champions winner and the No. 2 ranked team in the state, didn't run at full strength. UC also picked up a victory from junior Josh Hunsinger in the Future 4 race with big PR of 16:57, and an 11th place finish in the Fastest 4 race from junior Alessandro Alvarez-Tullo with a big PR of 16:37.
The top four for North Hunterdon, the state Group 3 champs last year, were senior Brayden Barro (a big PR of 16:05- a drop of 86 seconds from his time on this course last year), senior David McKinnon (16:08), senior Jeremy Bavaro (16:26) and senior Asa Alderman (16:53). North Hunterdon also received a strong third place finish from junior Charles Lisa in the Future 4 race in 17:24, and Conor Brand earned a victory for North Hunterdon by capturing the JV race in 18:22. All the North Hunterdon runners mentioned who ran at this meet last year, ran faster than they did a year ago.