The Boys Cross Country team put on a show, not only winning their individual race against the No. 4 state ranked Cherokee, scoring 49 points to Cherokee’s 65; they also won the entire meet with an average time of 16 minutes 38 seconds, once again beating county rival Union Catholic.
Although beating Cherokee this early in the season is a feat in itself, looking forward, head coach Christopher Tafelski said, “It’s early on in the season, and a lot can change. The only thing that this can show us right now is that we are on the right track to being able to compete in that Group 4 meet.”
This was a huge step up from the previous week. The Blue Devils were previously ranked 6th in the state behind Cherokee, so they are expected to make a huge jump in the state rankings. Another huge step from the previous week was senior Cole Varner’s performance. Varner ran a personal record in the 5k with an impressive time of 16:46, landing him in 13th place.
Varner credits this to a good strategy and said, “We started the race exactly how our coach wanted us to at the 1k and the mile mark, both placement wise and time wise. Then, we just stayed passive trying to hold our places until the final 1.5 miles where we got the wheels turning and passed a lot of people.”
The Top 5 finishing order goes as follows: senior Ryan Daly in 3rd place, senior Kaleb Stoeckmann in 5th place, junior Brody Toriello in 6th place, Varner in 13th place and junior Christian Buonopane in 28th place.
Looking at that top pack, Stoeckmann believed that it was a “very strategic race.” He was able to stick with the front pack for most of the race which is something that shocked both Stoeckmann and Tafelski.
Tafelski did not anticipate the Blue Devils being able to pack so many of their runners in the top 30. He said, “It was a tremendous performance from both Varner and Toriello who have both made significant progress with this being their first year on the varsity scene.”
Looking into the near future for the team, the Blue Devils will travel to Oak Ridge Park in Clark to compete in the Union County Conference meet on Oct. 16 where they are favored to win.
