Before he entered his cross country teams in the prestigious and highly competitive Passaic County Coaches Invitational cross country championships at Garret Mountain last Saturday, veteran Secaucus head coach Stan Fryczynski knew that he had the makings of a special group, especially with his girls’ team.
“At the beginning of last week, I told both the boys and the girls that they could have a good meet at Passaic,” Fryczynski said. “We gave them the toughest schedule to put them through before the meet, to see if we couldn’t take the program to another level.”
So to begin the cross country season, Fryczynski took the Patriots to a tough meet at Kutztown State University, called the PTXCG.
“It was a big meet with more than 200 teams there,” Fryczynski said. “Every race was stacked.”
Then, for the second week, the Patriots went to the Bernie Magee Invitational, which is usually held at Warinanco Park in Elizabeth, but this year was moved to Greystone Park in Morris Plains because of the renovations taking place at Warinanco.
“We figured we would go to Bernie Magee, because the state sectionals [the NJSIAA North Jersey Section 2, Group I championships] are being held at Greystone this year,” Fryczynski said. “This set us up pretty well.”
It certainly set the Patriot girls’ team up well last weekend, because they won their very first team title ever at the Passaic County Coaches Invitational, outdueling Bogota and Montclair Kimberley Academy to capture the Varsity Group 1 title.
“We never even placed in the top three there before,” Fryczynski said. “We traveled far and wide to different courses to let them see cross country in different places, but these seniors never even competed at Passaic before.”
Junior Mehek Parikh led the way, finishing second overall in 22:22, followed by junior Roshni Patel, who was third in 22:33 and senior Samantha Neshiewat, who finished fourth in 22:38.
“Those three girls can handle the competition,” Fryczynski said. “Any one of those three can beat the other. It’s that close.”
Freshman Victoria Saniko was 14th overall in 24:30, followed by teammates Victoria De La Rosa in 15th and Juliet Nowak in 16th, all within 19 seconds of each other. Katalina Cornelio was 25th to round out the Secaucus winning contingent.
In the boys’ Varsity Group 1 race, senior Shaun O’Brien was fifth and junior Sondy Polanco was sixth to lead the Patriots, who finished third.
“It was a good meet for us on a tough course,” Fryczynski said. “I think we come back to reality a little with our league races, competing against schools our own size.”
The Patriots will go to Holmdel this weekend and compete in the Varsity Group F races at the Shore Coaches Invitational at Holmdel Park…
Speaking of Secaucus, two notes. The school’s volleyball program won its 800th match last week, becoming only the second New Jersey school to win that many matches.
And the architect of that program, Maria Nolan, just retired last week after 37 years teaching in the school district….
In a strange move, the powers-that-be at St. Michael’s and St. Stephen’s Parish in Union City has advised the long-standing St. Michael’s CYO program, going strong for some 50 years now, that it needs to find a new location, that a soccer clinic is taking over the gym beginning this weekend.
It makes no sense to remove a basketball program that has catered to hundreds of kids annually for more than 50 years for a fledgling soccer group, especially going indoors when the weather is still nice.
Here’s hoping that wiser heads prevail and something can be done to save the St. Michael’s CYO program, which has given countless of the area’s top basketball players their first chance to taste competitive basketball…
Another of the local high school football teams has fallen from the ranks of the undefeated, as St. Peter’s Prep, which began the season as the No. 1 team in New Jersey, lost to IMG Academy of Florida, 36-20, last Saturday night in a game that featured two lengthy weather delays and saw the Marauders lose an incredible four touchdowns to penalties.
OK, we’ll give you one score via the flag, but four? That’s unheard of, but stranger things have happened on the road.
Anyway, Prep QB quarterback Brandon Wimbush, had yet another incredible game, completing 33-of-49 passes for 377 yards and two TDs. It gives Wimbush seasonal totals of 74-of-101 (73 percent) for 1,063 yards and 12 touchdowns in just four games. It’s phenomenal production for the Penn State-bound signal caller…
Union City bounced back with a 42-0 victory over Bayonne, with all three of the Soaring Eagles’ top running backs, Nawell Rojas (11 carries, 116 yards), Tamaine Boyd (13 carries, 111 yards, 2 TDs) and Jonathan Castellano (five carries, 100 yards, 2 TDs) all going over the 100-yard plateau….
Other quarterbacks to fare well last week include Justin Bailey of Memorial (10-of-18, 150 yards, two TDs) and Anthony Ramos of North Bergen (6-of-7, 135 yards, three TDs)…
Other running backs include Devell Jones of Lincoln (11 carries, 141 yards, one TD), Malcolm Stewart of Hudson Catholic (five carries, 131 yards, 1 TD) and Evander Pons of Secaucus (21 carries, 104 yards, 1 TD)…
Lost in all the Derek Jeter hoopla of last weekend is the fact that the now-retired Yankees captain’s mother was born and raised in Jersey City and that his grandfather was once a caretaker for several Jersey City Parochial schools…
Congrats to former North Bergen boys’ basketball coach John Barone, former North Bergen girls’ soccer coach Nico Percontino and their families for the opening of a new sports bar in Fairview, called Bar-One. Get it, Barone, Bar-One? Catchy name, indeed…
Hudson Reporter H.S. Football Top Five: 1. St. Peter’s Prep (3-1). 2. Union City (2-1). 3. Hoboken (3-0). 4. Lincoln (3-0). 5. North Bergen (3-0)…
Hudson Reporter H.S. Soccer Top Five: 1. St. Peter’s Prep (7-2-1). 2. North Bergen (6-2). 3. Memorial (4-4). 4. Dickinson (7-1). 5. Union City (3-6-1). – Jim Hague
Jim Hague can be reached at OGSMAR@aol.com.