Records, Titles, and Momentum: Sectionals Recap

This year’s Group 4 Sectional Championship looked a little different than normal—it became a three-day meet. With the NJSIAA unable to secure a venue with an eight-lane track and multiple jumping pits, the meet moved literally down the road to Lenape High School. Before getting into the performances, credit has to go to Lenape and their staff—they did an outstanding job hosting an event of that size and keeping everything running smoothly.

Competition opened on Wednesday the 13th with the triple jump before returning to the traditional two-day format on the 15th and 16th.

In the triple jump, Caitlin Noga came within striking distance of her personal best, jumping 31-2.5 to place 15th overall. Tyrnee Forbeck added a mark of 29-2.5 to finish 22nd.

Friday finally arrived and gave us our first real look at how we stacked up against the other 19 teams in Group 4.

The day opened with the 4x100m relay, and we had to make a last-minute adjustment to the lineup. Lanae Porter, Emily Couture, Savanah Human, and Caitlin Noga responded with a season-best 51.24. Human and Noga both recorded their fastest relay splits of the season at 13.1 and 12.6 respectively. The group finished 9th overall—well ahead of their 16th seed.

Next up was the 800m.

In a stacked field, Sofia Recinto executed a smart race and delivered a textbook negative split performance. She passed through 400m in 1:08.85 and closed in 1:07.67 to run 2:16.52 and place 2nd overall—her fastest open 800m of the season. Maddie Meder added valuable points with a 5th-place finish in 2:20.87, while Alyssa Suriano finished 11th in 2:25.52.

That got us on the board in team scoring.

The 100m trials followed and all three of our athletes delivered season bests. Emily Couture ran 13.17 for 22nd, Lanae Porter clocked 13.22 for 26th, and Savanah Human finished in 13.52 for 32nd.

Caitlin Noga continued to improve in the 400m Intermediate Hurdles clocking a lifetime best of 1:11.72 to place 17th.

Over in the field events, shot put got rolling in a big way.

Addie Lore had one of the breakout performances of the meet, launching a massive PR of 35-5.75 to place 3rd overall. Her series looked like the following. 33-7.5, 33-8.5, and then 32-1.5 to advance to the finals sitting in 4th place. In the finals she threw 33-0, 33-5.75 and then 35-5.75 to move up to 3rd. That throw tied the #3 all-time Cherokee mark set by Emily Spieker—also achieved at a Sectional Championship. Salma Abdallah added a throw of 30-7.75 for 14th and Brooke Garrity threw 30-2.5 to place 18th.

Addie wasn’t done.

She walked directly over to javelin and delivered the best performance of her career. Her series was 107-6, 127-8, 124-8, 114-8, 116-9 and 125-10. Her throw of 127-08 earned her the Sectional Championship and currently ranks NJ #6. It also moved her to #3 all-time outdoors in program history.

Friday night closed with the 3200m under what turned into nearly perfect distance conditions. Temperatures dropped, the wind settled, and the stage was set.

With two girls in the field already under 11 minutes this season, we felt we were in a position to advance athletes.

Alyssa Suriano and Maddie Meder returned after the open 800 while Erin Healy lined up fresh for her first race of the meet.

The front pack came through the mile in 5:31–5:32 with eight athletes tightly grouped. Around lap five, things began to stretch out. Erin moved aggressively with the front group while Alyssa stayed within striking distance and Maddie settled into 8th.

With two laps to go, the front two began to separate, but Alyssa steadily closed the gap and moved herself into 3rd. At the bell, first through fifth were separated by only a few meters.

Then came the move.

Down the backstretch Alyssa and Erin both started pressing. With 200m remaining, four athletes were shoulder to shoulder. Once they entered the final straightaway, Alyssa unleashed one final gear.

She sprinted past both the Cherry Hill East and Kingsway athletes to defend her Sectional title in record fashion.

Alyssa crossed in a massive PR of 10:51.10, closing with a 5:19.86 final 1600m. Her performance moved her to NJ #7 and #3 all-time outdoors in program history.

Erin Healy delivered one of the biggest races of her career as well, breaking 11 minutes for the first time with a huge PR of 10:54.57 to finish 4th. That performance moved her to #5 all-time outdoors and #2 all-time among sophomores.

Maddie Meder added a solid 10th-place finish in 11:32.57.

When Friday ended, we found ourselves sitting in 2nd place behind Southern Regional. We knew Day 2 on paper favored Southern and Pennsauken, but the goal became simple—stay in the fight.

Saturday brought warmer temperatures and lighter winds.

The open 400m kicked things off, where freshman Cassidy Urban ran a season-best 1:04.40 to place 32nd.

The 100m hurdles trials followed with Taylor Reddington running 18.53 (22nd), Morgan Bethea at 19.69 (30th), and Grace Bachman finishing in 20.39 (34th).

Then came the 4x800m.

Despite entering as the top seed based on our Penn performance, only one athlete from that relay lineup was available. On paper, the projected time came out around 9:48. I challenged the girls to break 9:40 and give themselves a chance.

They delivered.

Maya Kumar led off with the fastest 800m of her career in 2:26.09 and handed off in contention. Ava Guarini followed with a lifetime best 2:24.88. Erin Healy took the baton in 5th and immediately changed the race. After one lap she had moved us into 3rd, then continued to reel in the leaders and opened a 12-meter gap.

That left anchor duties to Gabby Urban.

Adrenaline carried Gabby through a blistering opening lap of 1:05.89—nearly her open 400 PR pace. She fought to the line and held on for a lifetime best 2:26.96 split.

The team ran 9:39.16 and earned 3rd place.

Meanwhile in the field, Kim Moncrief cleared 4-8 in high jump to finish 8th.

Discus continued Addie Lore’s outstanding weekend. She threw 106-0 to place 4th and officially qualified for States in all three throwing events. Brooke Garrity placed 13th at 87-9 and Norjanna Abdallah finished 37th at 60-7.

Our final event of the meet was the 1600m.

Sofia Recinto, Alyssa Suriano, and Maddie Meder all lined up in the fast heat.

The pace opened conservatively with the lead pack hitting 800m in 2:35–2:36. Eight athletes remained tightly packed until the backstretch, where the field finally began to separate.

Sofia positioned herself perfectly.

At the bell it was down to three athletes—Toms River North, Cherry Hill East, and Sofia.

On the final backstretch Sofia made her move and she never looked back.

She closed with a huge negative split of 2:35.65 / 2:25.70 to win her first Sectional Championship in 5:01.39. That performance moved her to #4 all-time outdoors in program history. Alyssa battled back for 5th in 5:14.06 and Maddie finished 9th in 5:22.17.

When the final points were tallied, the team finished 3rd overall behind Southern Regional and Pennsauken.

The following wek, the meet that was supposed to never happen, didn't happen. The SJTCA Elite meet struggled with finding a venue after an over booking mishap at Delsea, then switched days to only have that meet cancelled by the record breaking heat we had early in the week.

Our Final Countdown meet was Thursday and was able to be completed despite some nagging rains. Caitlin Noga continued to improve in the 400m IH running a lifetime best of 1:10.98 to place 4th. Gabby Urban stepping down to the 400m ran a lifetime best of 1:04.24 to place 7th. The 1600m saw two lifetime bests from Genisa John 5:50.49 and Lilly Hazlett 5:52.00 to place 12th and 13th.

Next up for the group is Night Racer # 2 which will feature a Super Sprint Medley, 800m and 1600m