High school track and field, especially cross country at this time of year, is a sport based on records.
There are school records, meet records, personal records, team records. You name it, there are more records to handle than Motown and RCA ever produced – combined.
The St. Dominic Academy track and field program is one entrenched in records, marks that the long-time head coach John Nagel will gladly address.
So when the cross country season began – albeit a truncated version this year due to the COVID-19 restrictions — Nagel wanted to make sure that there were records that needed to be brought to the forefront.
For example, the Blue Devils never won four consecutive Hudson County Track Coaches Association cross country championships prior to this year. The Blue Devils had won their fair share of county championships, some 53 in all over 126 seasons – cross country, indoor and outdoor – but never captured four HCTCA cross country titles consecutively.
And Nagel’s top performer, Kayla Sullivan, had come close to winning an individual HCTCA crown in the past, finishing third as a freshman and second as both a sophomore and last year as a junior.
So last Saturday, at the 2020 HCTCA cross country championships, there were records at stake.
The Blue Devils had a chance to set a team record for the best overall performance in a meet and had the opportunity to win four straight league titles for the first time in the school’s rich and storied history.
“This group has been very good since Day One,” Nagel said. “They’ve never let up and they rise to the occasion.”
Even after the school had to endure a two-week quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Blue Devils were not going to let anything deter them.
Led by Sullivan, who won the race in 20:28.80, the Blue Devils set a new record for the largest winning margin, outdistancing runner-up Union City by an astounding 50 points.
SDA had five of the top six place finishers – only interrupted by Marisol Vasquez of Union City, who finished second overall in 20:39.70 – en route to the easy victory.
SDA senior Milani Bethel was third overall in 21:04.80, followed by teammates Charlotte Hennessey (21:18.50), Mia Martinko (21:38.60) and Caroline O’Donnell (21:40.10).
Nagel was impressed with Sullivan’s performance.
“She ran very well,” Nagel said. “She’s unflappable. She’s very low keyed. She ran out wire-to-wire. She’s a tough kid.”
Sullivan, whose aunt, Liane, is one of the best performers in the history of Hudson County track and field and is a Hudson County Sports Hall of Famer, said that it was tough to overcome the adversities of first missing the entire outdoor track season in the spring due to the coronavirus, then miss two key weeks in the fall once again due to the pandemic.
“It was a little bit of a shock,” Sullivan said. “I was definitely a little worried that we wouldn’t have a cross country season. Every practice, I felt lucky that we were still able to run. I brought that feeling to practice every day. We only raced three times prior to the county meet. It’s been a very difficult season, but this was a positive. It was a good way to go out, because we never lost as a team in my four years. We always run for each other. I’m very excited for our chances in the state sectionals [Nov. 15 at the Garret Mountain Reserve in Woodland Park].”
Nagel also praised Bethel’s efforts.
“I love her range,” Nagel said. “She can run anything.”
Bethel said that missing out on the outdoor season last spring was extremely upsetting.
“During the spring, I lost all hope of competing again in high school,” Bethel said. “Since cross country is outdoors, I thought maybe we had a shot, but then it was getting cut short again. It was just crazy. I think it made us all a little hungrier and made us go after this more. We had a chance to represent ourselves, our team and our school once again. I think this gives us confidence going forward.”
Hennessey recovered from a serious illness as a sophomore to becoming a top five finisher as a senior.
“She’s worked very hard to get back,” Nagel said.
“I had some pretty big goals when I started,” Hennessey said. “I ran varsity as a freshman and I had it all taken away from me as a sophomore. It was pretty hard for me to step away from it. I had to rekindle my spirit for running again. The prospects of never running again really worried me.”
But for Hennessey to come all the way back to finish in the top five as a senior? That’s truly an amazing feat.
“It never even crossed my mind,” Hennessey said. “I always had the goal of getting back to running again, but to get to this point? It was always a motivation, but it’s pretty crazy to think it actually happened.”
“I think we have a legacy to uphold and give to the underclassmen,” Bethel said. “We will eventually be going our different ways, but at the meet, a lot of our alumni came back to see us and root for us. So we’ll do the same next year.”
Bethel hopes to go to a college “out west somewhere,” to possibly study sports medicine or kinesiology.
Hennessey hopes to compete in a college somewhere in the northeastern part of the country. She would like to study pre-med, hopefully something in pediatrics.
That would also keep in the tradition of record keeping at SDA – the records of graduates from the school going on to some of the best colleges in the country. That record may be the most important one of all. – Jim Hague
Jim Hague can be reached via e-mail at OGSMAR@aol.com
