Sports
Dodgers Hold Their Own
Madison High School winter track team puts forth all-around team effort at Passarelli Invitational.
The Madison High School indoor winter track team found a myriad of success in the 30th Annual Tony Passarelli Invitational at Drew University, Saturday.
"We had a lot of nice things happen today," said Madison head coach Mark LaDolcetta. "We picked up a few medals despite having a few people running for the first time today."
Senior Kyle Flyer placed third in the 600 meter run with a time of 1:28.89, less than two seconds off the pace of Delbarton's Pat Schellberger. He also placed sixth in the 1,000 meter run, just over seven seconds off the pace of West Orange's Curtis Richburg.
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"I'm really pleased with where I finished," Flyer explained. "I haven't run the 600 in a little while, and I was looking to go out and try and keep up. I'll take third; it was better than where I thought I might finish."
The surprise of the day may have come from Dodgers sophomore Jack Mahoney who ran a 4:50.45 in the 1,600 meter run, finishing in fifth among 33 runners.
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"Mahoney ran for his first time in the 1,600, and for him to finish fifth is great," said LaDolcetta.
On the girls side, the 4x51.5 shuttle hurdle relay ran by the quartet of junior Gabby Rojas, freshman Natasha Nikodijevic, junior Melissa Iskandar and sophomore Siobhan McCulloch finished sixth with a time of 38.20.
Additionally, the Madison girls were highly successful in the shot put with junior Elizabeth Hubbard and senior Grace Marotta placing sixth and ninth respectively.
Perhaps their best effort of the day, however, came from sophomore Katie McCarter; she finished fifth out 26 runners in the 1,600 meters, running a 5:54.27.
"I actually think I did a lot better than I was expecting," McCarter said. "The best I ever did was 5:57 so I was pretty pleased with where I was."
On whether or not today's performance can springboard her to an individually improving season, McCarter said, "Yeah, definitely. This is the first time I ran the mile this year so I think I can keep on improving."
"We got a nice finish in the 600 and 1,000 too," explained DeLocetta. "I'm very happy with both boys and girls relays teams, and I think we're where we want to be with the championship meets coming up – seeing some things we need to see in order to be competitive in a few weeks."
