Girls Track Looks to Penn Relays

It's been more of the usual success for the Cranford girls' track team, thanks to a number of strong performances last weekend at the Summit Relays.

Notre Dame-bound senior Kelly Burke and sophomore Rebecca Shiminoff both broke the meet-record in the triple jump.

"This was my first actual time doing triple jump at a meet and I jumped over 31-feet," said Shiminoff. "I was really surprised. I knew we definitely had a chance of winning between us and Arthur L. Johnson and when I found out we won, I was happy. But knowing that we beat a record made it even more exciting."

The 4 x 4 team was victorious as well, defeating a talented group of St. Benedictine runners thanks to an exciting come-from-behind effort led by Englese and her teammates Devon Cacchione, Kate Evans and Shiminoff.

"I know I went out really hard," said Evans, who ran the first leg. "Rebecca and Devon kind of hung in the pack, and Natalie won it for us, of course. She was neck-and-neck with the St. Benedictine girl, and we're rivals with them, so when she beat her, it was awesome."

"As a group, the girls had a good third-place showing as a team," said coach John Schiano. "I think they got a taste of what they're really going to be capable of doing this season. They can have a lot of success at the team level and the individual level. They're ready to go. They can't wait until the next meet."

"We've been working really hard throughout the season and we've been doing really good in our workouts, so we expect to win a lot more this season," said Cacchione.

"The girls 4 x 4, we're all really close and good friends, so that brings us together. In workouts, we try to push each other to make us better and hopefully we can all PR (personal record) every meet."

Everyone is looking ahead to Saturday's Mountain Valley Conference meet and the Penn Relays starting on April 24.

"ALJ won our last meet, but we're definitely in the same league as them," said Englese. "They have a great core group of girls, but I think we have the same amount of talent. In relays, we have a lot of good talent from distance to sprinters to jumpers and throwers, so I think we have a good chance of bringing home a conference championship."

"I just want to break 60 this weekend, and I'm sure everyone else just wants to PR," Evans said. "We're excited."

The girls 4 x 4 team has already qualified for the prestigious Penn Relays, and it can't come soon enough.

"We want to do really good in Penn Relays, hopefully win our heat, at least," said Cacchione. "And I think we can do it because we've been working really hard in practice."

"We're excited for the Penn Relays," said Shiminoff. "We're trying to place in that, maybe win our heat, or place overall. That would be awesome."

On the boys' side, the team continues to improve on the strength of their 4 x 8 team.

"The boys had a really successful showing on Saturday," said Schiano. "It was our first invitational of the season. It gave the kids a lot of confidence to show them that their work has been paying off. The boys distance medley relay finished fourth, a lot of PR's in that race. Bit races by Jeff Sun, Bill Haussner, Tyler Ainge, George El-Khoury, so they had a really good race."

"The Summit Relays was a solid day for us," said Jeff Sun. "we're ahead of where we were last year. It's much better. We scored a lot of points, in events we usually don't. We scored points in the 400 hurdles, Distance Medley Relay (DMR), the 4 x 8 and pole vault."

"At the Summit Relays, we had a DMR team, and we were in first place for much of the race, which is really unusual for us" said Billy Haussner. "We really don't have a lot of success like that. It was a big change. We're getting a lot better. It's really good so far."

"The strongest part of the team is mid-distance," said Sun. "We've been showing really strong lately. But the sprinters have also been surprising us.  They're usually not the strongest part of the team, but they've been scoring some points for us."

This Saturday is the Mountain Valley Conference Memorial Meet and the 4 x 8 team is looking at their final chance to qualify for the Penn Relays.

"We have to hit a time of 8:15 to qualify," said Sun. "It'll be hard, but I think we can do it. We've been training really hard and doing a lot of speed work. We're trying to run fast for Saturday. We're also getting Will Smith back. He took winter off for injury and he's coming back. He's one of our best runners."

"Penn Relays is the biggest meet in the country," said junior Dan Cleary. "The 4 x 8 is much harder to get into than any of the other races that you can run."

"Recently, we've always had a good group of 800 runners," said Haussner. "We've always wanted to try and go to Penn Relays and this is our last shot to be able to do it. We definitely can do it. We need to all hit our times. Last season, we ran 8:26, but we didn't have as strong runners then. We're a lot better this year."

The 4 x 8 team is looking forward to having their chance at making history.

"Penn Relays has been a goal of mine since my sophomore year, trying to get a team there," said Sun. "I think this team has the best chance."

"If we were to make the Penn Relays, it means we came full circle," noted Haussner. "We're finally a really good team in mid-distance events, which is what we've always wanted to be."