At the North 2, Group 4 Championship on Nov. 4 and the Meet of Champions on Nov. 11, both Boys and Girls Cross Country teams had record breaking performances. Both meets were raced at Holmdel Park, a course notorious for its steep hills and challenging grounds. Having raced at Holmdel all season long, the Blue Devils were exceptionally prepared.
Led by senior captain Avery Keith, the boys conquered the groups meet, obtaining a score of 54 points. Out of the 145 runners who competed at the meet, Keith placed second overall with a time of 15:40, only two seconds slower than the first place runner from Manalapan High School.
Following Keith, junior Ryan Daly placed 10th with senior captain Jimmy Gildea right behind him in 11th. The other four runners that raced for the boys placed within the top 35 runners, leaving all Westfield runners with an average course time of 16:01.
“I think it was as good as it could’ve gone,” said head coach Chris Tafelski. “It was weird because we were supposed to win. It’s hard to be the favorite, but at the same time going to that meet we were definitely the best team.”
With just as impressive of a performance, the girls placed third in the group meet for the first time in six years. Freshman Anna Youssef was the 1st Blue Devil to cross the finish line ranking 17th place overall. Senior captain Lina Wright trailed by only a few places, ranking 23rd, with both runners breaking a time of 20 minutes.
The Blue Devils accumulated 132 points total to just barely settle themselves in the top 3 behind Ridgewood High School and Freehold High School, two schools known for their competitive cross country programs. The girls lost to Ridgewood by just 10 points, and Freehold by 2. Although the girls were initially unranked this season, head coach Joseph Berardi saw this outcome from a mile away.
“Coming into the season, there are rankings on milesplit.com and nj.com and we weren’t even a team that was mentioned,” said Berardi. “I could tell during the summer we were going to be a good team, I told them we are going to be top ten in the state, and then later in the season, I started thinking we are going to be a podium team.”
The following weekend, the boys ranked second overall at the MOCs, their highest finish at this meet since 1996. Again, the boys were led by Keith, placing 4th out of 165 runners with a time of 15:49. Keith’s finish was the highest for the Blue Devils since Jeff Perrella’s performance in 2005.
The Blue Devils put up a score of 74 points, trailing the Christian Boys Academy by 36 points. With an average team time of 16:11, 10 seconds slower than the average at groups, the team performance was seemingly much worse previously.
“The first mile was a bit more stressful than they were expecting,” said Tafelski. “I think on average, all the teams were 8 to 10 seconds slower than they were at the group meet the week before. So, timewise we ran a little bit slower, but that doesn’t mean we ran worse.”
Despite the times, the boys ran an extraordinary race: “I thought they really performed well in a stressful situation,” said Tafelski.
In addition to the boys’ successful performance, the girls had made history for the cross country program. They had ranked seventh overall in the MOCs, only missing the podium by a slight three points. Youssef ranked highest for the Blue Devils with a time of 19:41, placing 33rd out of 160 runners.
“Qualifying for the MOCs was always the goal, and we had done it with ease,” said senior captain Grace Lisnock. “By the time the meet came around, all we had to do was put in the same amount of effort as the week before and the results would follow. This was one of the highest MOCs rankings for the team which was a great feeling.”
“Our motto for the past few weeks was ‘close the gap:’ we were not going to lose by 100 points. I was hoping for only around 30, and when results came out, we only lost by 22 to Freehold and in a big meet like this, that was nothing,” said Berardi.
The MOCs had closed out the cross country season for the girls. However, the boys race at the Nike Cross Nationals Northeast Regional at the Bowdoin course in Wappingers Fall, New York on Nov. 25. The two top teams from the meet will qualify for the national cross country meet in Portland, Oregon. The boys will be fighting to clinch ones of these two spots, and if not, their historic season will reach a close.
