Four runners from Cherry Hill East and one Cherry Hill West runner will compete with the top high school runners in New Jersey at the NJSIAA Meet of Champions at Holmdel Park on Saturday.
Cherry Hill’s two high schools will be well-represented in the final cross country meet of 2016 on Saturday.
Four Cherry Hill East runners and one Cherry Hill West runner will compete in the season’s biggest meet, the NJSIAA Meet of Champions, on Saturday at Holmdel Park. Each of the runners qualified for the meet with fast individual times at the NJSIAA state championships last weekend.
Cherry Hill East will have two male runners and two female runners competing on Saturday. On the girls side, freshman Grace Yoon will try to end her outstanding 2016 season on a high note. Yoon nearly won the NJSIAA Group IV championship last weekend, finishing in second place with a time of 18:28 as Ridgewood High School’s Olympia Martin just edged Yoon out at the finish line. Yoon’s time allowed her to qualify for the Meet of Champions.
Yoon’s sophomore teammate, Sarah Pierce, snagged one of 10 individual wild card spots for Saturday’s Meet of Champions. Pierce’s time of 19:24 was good enough for 13th place in the Group IV state championship and the fastest of the 10 wild card runners qualified for this weekend’s meet.
The Cherry Hill East boys cross country team also had two runners qualify for Meet of Champions with a wild card. Seniors Tyler Parsons and Marc Meltzer will compete on Saturday after finishing in 15th and 20th place, respectively last weekend in the Group IV state championship.
Another wild card will be Cherry Hill West senior Robert Abrams. Abrams qualified for Meet of Champions as a wild card after finishing in 11th place at the NJSIAA Group III championship meet. Abrams won the South Jersey Group III sectional meet on Nov. 5.