The boys cross country season started the same way it always did, at the Cherokee Challenge, this season it was on Sept. 9. Typically head coach Chris Tafelski rests the top seven varsity guys at this meet because it is early in the season. But, this season was different, after graduating six of seven varsity boys last year there were some holes to be filled, and Tafelski wasn’t sure who would be the seventh member of the Varsity team so he used this meet to determine it.
This question was decisively answered by sophomore standout Alex Davlouros who ran by far the best performance of the day and locked up the varsity spot for the rest of the season.
The next varsity meet took place on Sept. 28. At the Bowdoin Classic meet, the Blue Devils were able to claim 4th place in a meet with well over 50 teams from all over the Northeast. Tafelski said, “This was a great start for the team, graduating six of seven guys would normally be devastating to any other team. But, these guys have been working hard all summer and went out there and showed everyone that the Blue Devils are still rolling.”
After Bowdoin, Westfield hopped right back into action at the Shore Coaches Invitational which was a huge step in the right direction for the Blue Devils. They came out on top of this packed invitational with junior Brody Toriello “having [his] best race of the year where [he] finished top 10 in a 200 person race.” Toriello was a big part of Westfield’s scoring all year and was even given the honor of 2nd team All-Group 4.
These two regular season meets were to prepare for racing before the postseason. First on the list was the Conference Tournament Meet which wasn’t too important as Tafelski rested seniors Ryan Daly and Kaleb Steockmann due to concern of lingering injuries, so the boys were bested by the fully assembled Union Catholic team.
Westfield got their revenge a week later in the Union County Championship meet, where the 1st place prize has eluded the Blue Devils countless times in the past 5 years, winning it last in 2019. So, to say that this meet was important was an understatement. Senior Cole Varner said, “This meet has been circled on the calendar since last October, we worked really hard and I can’t describe how good it feels to actually win it.”
The next meet happened to be the North 2, Group 4 Sectional championship where Westfield once again rested Daly and this time Toriello and still came out on top with the win by a large margin of 20 points. Tafelski said, “Being able to pull out the sectional championship without two of our top guys really sums up the type of team we are.”
The Blue Devils rode this high of back to back wins into the Group 4 Tournament where the inexperience finally caught up to them and in a super condensed race, in an environment that they were not used to, they fell short of their goal of winning states, placing third.
This devastated Westfield, but they couldn’t let that stop them from moving on and dominating the next meet, which is exactly what they did. The Blue Devils rallied back in the Meet of Champions, which combines the private and public schools across NJ into one race, and placed 4th out of every school in the state. Ending their season off on a high note.
Looking ahead to the next cross country season, Toriello, a newly appointed captain, said, “We will have high hopes throughout all of next year. We’ll take it day by day trying to improve our team as much as possible to be as good as possible for next year.”
