The Cherry Hill East boys cross country team, currently ranked fourth in the state and the defending Group IV Sectional Champions, recently participated in the 42nd Reebok Manhattan High School Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park in New York. This meet draws some of the best teams from across the nation and includes almost 40 races, 192 high schools and more than 2,300 runners.
This was East’s first time competing in the invitational, but based upon their strong performance it will probably not be their last. East competed in the Eastern States race, which was the premier race of the day as it featured five schools ranked in the top 40 nationally. In addition, the top 17 finishers of this race were also the top finishers of the merged results of all races. East finished fifth, which should raise their national profile and ranking, which was 46th in a preseason poll. Finishing ahead of East was Fayetteville-Manlius, Liverpool, St. Anthony’s and Christian Brothers Academy. East was led by junior Aaron Groff, who finished 11th in a time of 12:29.7 for the 2.5 mile course. Also starring for Cherry Hill were seniors Dan Helfand (30th), Christain Mele (44th) and Jeff Braun (92nd), junior Isaiah Jean-Baptiste (77th) and sophomores Marc Meltzer (73rd) and Josh Dillon (84th.)
In the merged results of all 192 schools and 2,300 plus runners, Cherry Hill finished sixth, just behind Haddonfield, which finished one place ahead of them. Groff (11th), Helfand (44th) and Mele (68th) finished in the top 100 of all runners.
In other races, junior Cole Parsons won his race. And in one of the freshman races, covering 1.25 miles in the famed park, Carmen DeCosmo and Jeremy Helfand finished in the top 30.
The team will now prepare to defend its South Jersey Group IV Sectional Championship on Nov. 8.
