The Ridge boys, ranked No. 5 in the state, made a huge statement by dropping the fastest average in course history on the way to a fourth straight title, and the No. 12 Hillsborough girls won a thriller over No. 13 Pingry at Thursday's Somerset County Championships at Pleasant Valley Park in Basking Ridge.
The individual winners were junior Julia Scrudato of Montgomery with a time of 18:52, and Ridge senior Patrick Doran ran 16:18 to finish first in the boys race.
Doran's victory ignited a historic finish for Ridge, who finished 1-2-3-6-8, had a remarkable 1-5 compression of 27 seconds on the way to a course record average of 16:28!!! The former course record average of 16:31 was set in 2013 by Hillsborough.
Behind Doran's 16:18, Ridge's tight pack consisted of junior Matthew Fukushima, second in 16:23, sophomore Brenden McMahon, third in 16:24, senior Connor McMahon, sixth in 16:34, and junior Dmitry Cole, eighth in 16:45. Ridge's sixth runner, senior Jonathan Wey, also cracked 17 minutes by placing ninth in 16:53. Sophomore Kaleb Huang was Ridge's No. 7 runner, placing 19th in 17:21.
The most amazing thing about Ridge's performance is that all seven guys ran course PR's, and five of the seven runners weren't in Ridge's top seven last year when Ridge won the State Group 4 title, and placed fourth at the Meet of Champions.
With five of their top seven graduating from that team last year, it didn't look there was any chance at the start of the season that Ridge had a shot at successfully defending its Group 4 title this fall. But now they are one of the favorites!!
HILLSBOROUGH AND SCRUDATO WIN GIRLS TITLES
The girls team battle between Hillsborough and Pingry lived up to all the hype as Hillsborough put three runners in front of Pingry's No. 2 runner and received seven course PR's to pull out a dramatic 55-58 victory.
Hillsborough, fourth last year, finished 4-6-8-17-20 and averaged 20:17. Pingry went 2-9-14-15-18 and averaged 20:13.
It's the first title for Hillsborough since it captured a seventh straight title in 2015 and it's their 11th county XC championship overall. The Raiders also won in 1998, '99, and 2000.
The top five for Hillsborough were senior Anna King, fourth in 19:48, junior Sabrina Sardar, sixth in 19:53, junior Liana Dudajek, eighth in 20:04, sophomore Nivedha Sundarrajan, 18th in 20:44, and senior Lauren Barker, 21st in 20:56.
The times by King and Sardar were their PR's for any course, and how about what Sardar did. Her time of 19:54 is a 1:54 faster than she ran at this meet last year when she placed 28th in 21:47! And Sundarrajan sliced 1:11 off her time from last year
The individual up front was also a good one as Scrudato defeated Pingry junior Olivia Murray by six seconds, 18:52 to 18:58.
Scrudato, second last year in 1905, has now won two huge races in a row. Last week, she ran 19:25 to win the Skyland Conference Championship on the rugged layout at Phillipsburg.
The 18:58 for Murray, who was 13th at this meet last year in 20:46, was a big PR as she continued her breakout season.