Madison Track Athletes Compete Against County's Best

The Morris County Relay Championships at Drew University were the first meet of 2010 for Madison and also the first meet that points were kept and overall winners decided.  

The Madison boys team finished 12th with five points, while the girls tied for 11th with four points.

The Madison boys distance team started the evening off with a fifth out of 15^th place finish, earning them 2 points. Sophomore Jack Mahoney, senior Jakob Steinmetz, senior Greg Zitelli, and senior Kyle Flyer ran the event in 11:22.21.

Randolph's boys and girls teams took first in four out of the first five events of the meet–and second in the fifth, establishing the Rams as the team to beat.

The Dodgers' girls shot put relay team took fourth out of 16. Senior Grace Marotta threw 30 feet, 11.25 inches and junior Elizabeth Hubbard threw 30 feet, 9.25 inches, earning four points total for their team.

With four events scored, the Madison boys team was tied for ninth with two points, and with five events scored for the girls, the Dodgers were tied with Montville and Chatham with four points a piece. Randolph's boys and girls both led at that point in the meet, with 42 points for the girls and 34 points for the boys.

The Madison girls junior varsity shot put relay team took third out of nine with their combined length of 45 feet, 6.5 inches. Junior Shannon Sweeney threw 24 feet, 3 inches, and senior Caroline Miller threw 21 feet, 3.5 inches.

Junior R.J. Graddy took third out of 24 in the boys varsity high jump with his leap of 5 feet, 8 inches. His third place finish, combined with Steinmetz's 14^th place 5 foot jump earned the Madison boys another point and a sixth place finish in the high jump relay.

"I have been jumping 5-foot-8 for awhile, but I can't get to 5-foot-10. I'll probably be able to improve this season though," Graddy said.

In the last boys event of the day, the varsity 4x400 relay took fifth out of 18 places and earned two points. Seniors Andrew Benzeberg, Kyle Flyer, Jimmy Finelli, and Greg Zitelli combined for a time of 3:45.25.

"We ran pretty well in the two distance medleys, both shuttle hurdles, and the boys 4x800. All of those were solid performances. The girls shot-putters threw well also and placed fourth," said head coach Mark LaDolcetta, adding, "the girls may have performed better in some of the relays if one of the key members of the team were not missing."

The girls meet ended with Randolph in first, accumulating a total of 52 points, 20 more than second place Morristown.

For the boys, Randolph won the meet with 61 points. Morristown took second with 52 points. No other team had more than 30 points.