Ocean City Boys' Track Team Wants to Add Another Title

The Ocean City High School distance runners won a sectional title in boys' cross-country in the fall.

The winter track and field team won a state title.

The spring track and field team wants some hardware, too.

"This season, we are going for a state title," Ocean City senior Bill Dooner said. "We got it in the indoor season. We are trying to get it again in the outdoor season."

The Red Raiders, especially the seniors, believe they have the talent and the depth to challenge for various titles.

Ocean City has a large group of seniors back, and believes this is the season they have been building toward since they first stepped on the track four years ago.

"It started as freshmen between Bill (Dooner), Andrew (DeMaria), myself and couple other guys," Jimmy O'Connor said. "(Coach Matt Purdue) really molded us from there. Now we are all seniors and we really want to win. We set a tone with a cross country sectional championship and a state championship in indoor."

The Red Raiders were 6-2 a year ago in the Cape-Atlantic League and finished in sixth place at the sectional meet last season. The athletes want to improve on both finishes.

As usual, the distance runners are a strength of the team led by Georgetown University-bound Miles Schoedler, one of the top distance runners in the nation.

Erik Johnson, who won the Meet of Champions mile title in the winter, Dan Murray, Andrew DeMaria and Joe DelVescio give the Red Raiders plenty of depth.

O'Connor is among the top high jumpers in South Jersey, if not the state, and the same can be said about Mike Oberg in the pole vault. Christian Tamburilla and Ed Albright add depth behind Oberg.

Chris Turner and Mike Coccodrilli are also consistent high jumpers behind O’Connor. Turner and Jason Chu will also compete in the long jump and triple jump.

O'Conner, Dooner, Ryan Bandy, Geoffrey Ely and James Ruff will run the hurdles.

The throwers include Dan Neate in the shot put, and Jim McMasters and O'Conner in the javelin. Dooner is the team's top sprinter along with Ryan Vivarelli.

"We want to be strong in the Cape-Atlantic League," Purdue said. "We were 6-2 last year so we want to improve on that record. We were disappointed with our South Jersey Group 3 finish. We finished fifth and sixth the last two years. We would like to break in that top two. Spring track is more difficult in a sense because there are more events, and we need to strengthen ourselves in some of those events to compete."