Mendham pulled off a sweep, Villa Walsh repeated, the Madison boys captured a title and Luke Schagelin of Morris Knolls and defending champion Blythe Dudley of Villa Walsh ran the fastest times at Tuesday's Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference Championships on the Greystone course in Morris Plains.
In the boys competition, No. 9 ranked Mendham, third a year ago, regained the Large School title on the strength of its remarkable compression as the Minutemen had a 1-5 spread of just 31 seconds, which sparked Mendham to a 56-86 win over runner-up Chatham. Mendham went 4-5-13-14-20 and averaged 16:30 over the 3.1-mile layout. Junior Tommy Jendryka, fourth in 16:07, and senior Justin Bongiovanni, fifth in 16:10, led the charge up front for Mendham, which will go into the Morris County Championships next week at Greystone as the heavy favorites to win.
Schagelin, who finished second in the 800 at the Meet of Champions last June, ripped a huge PR for any course by stopping the clock at 15:56 to win the Large School race. That's 21 seconds faster than Schagelin's previous best at Greystone.
Madison's frontal assault propelled the Dodgers to the boys Small School title as junior Jacob Nolan (16:31), junior Leo London (16:35), and senior Patrick Natale (16:36) finished 2-3-4 to ignite Madison, third last year, to a 43-78 win over defending champion Kinnelon. Junior Max Kahn of Mountain Lakes won the race in 16:15, a nine second PR!
On the girls side, both Mendham and Villa Walsh repeated as champions, Dudley won her second straight title, and Ivory Piskula of Morris Hills continued her breakout junior year with the biggest win of her career.
In the Large School race, Piskula dropped a 31 second PR when she ran under 19 for the time ever with a winning time of 18:55, and Mendham maintained its dominance by rolling to a 54-106 victory over runner-up Chatham. Mendham finished 3-6-12-13-20 and averaged 21:14.
Meanwhile, Dudley, a sophomore, ran a huge PR of 18:31 to win the Small Schools race by 18 seconds to lead Villa Walsh to an impressive 47-131 victory over second-place Morris Catholic. Dudley's 18:31 slices 29 seconds off her previous best at Greystone! Villa Walsh went 1-5-10-15-16 and averaged 20:25 en route to the victory.
