2009 Cranford Relays

The weather was nasty on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter, a day earmarked for indoor activities and certainly not fit for most sporting events. But track meets rarely get canceled and the Cougar Relays held at Memorial Field in Cranford Saturday, April 11 went on as scheduled although in a modified state. Three events, deemed too dangerous for the rainy, windy and cold conditions, the triple jump, pole vault and high jump were all postponed. The omission of three of their strongest events probably cost the Cranford Girls the team title as they finished second behind Plainfield, but Coach Pete Kane was just happy to get though the day and never thought of canceling the entire meet.

“We had no intentions of canceling the meet. You can run in the rain. We only canceled certain events due to safety factors. The canceled events really need proper footing and the weather was not allowing for that. All the coaches were in agreement to cancel those events. I think this meet will make our kids appreciate the great weather when it hopefully gets here,” said Kane.

“The weather really was terrible on Saturday but the athletes came out and competed as hard as they could this weekend. Many of the kids came to me after their races or field events and told me they did horribly, .but also let me know that they placed top three in the event. It was very impressive because the conditions were cold and rainy for everyone but our athletes were able to overcome the conditions more than their competitors,” added Kane, who noted that his team has yet to compete in optimum conditions this spring.

The girls took first place in four events, two on the track and two in the field. The sprint medley relay of junior Kelly Burke, freshman Gillian Burke, sophomore Natalie Englese and senior Clare. Humen clocked 4:36.9 to outpace. Governor Livingston.

Gillian and Kelly Burke also combined with senior Julianne Grandal and freshman Rebecca Shiminov to finish the meet by sloshing the 4 by 400 in the same time as the sprint medley relay. Governor Livingston was also second in that race. Englese and Gillian Burke also combined for fourth in the long jump.

The Cougars also dominated the weight events as Nicole Somma combined with Grandal to defeat Plainfield with a combined throw of 55-5. Senior Tanara Zamorski combined with Grandal to easily take the javelin with a throw of 183.
The Cougars’ young and improving distance corps came through with three second places finishes against tough competition. The distance medley relay of Meaghan Monihan, Clare Human, Natalie Englese and Bridget Miller ran 13:56, 25 seconds behind winner Roselle Catholic. The 4 by 800 of Maria Guarisco, Ronnie Miller, Maggie Brown and Bridget Miller and the 4 by 1600 of Ronnie Miller, Rebecca Hanke, Megan Byrnes and Maggie Brown also finished second.

Although they did not finish first in any events the young boys team was competitive in most events and had numerous fine performances. .The team of John Powasnik, Tyler Ainge, Billy Haussner and Roy Colicchio were third in a strong distance medley relay field running 12:01

The 3 x 400 intermediate hurdles team of Dalber Perreira, Chris Witwick and Tom Folger was second to Plainfield in 3:19. The 4 x 800 team of Powasnik Haussner, Michael Cassidy and Jeff Sun, also finished second in 9:01.

The shot put relay of Mark Wills and Nolan Heineman were second in 66’1 and the discus duo of Wills and Heineman was also second in 184’8 while the javelin team of Wills and Mike Mullen was also second in 239’4.

“Of course I wish we could have triple jumped, pole vaulted and high jumped- and I definitely think those events could have helped our team scoring both on the boys and girls sides,” added Kane, who readies the team for its busiest two weeks of the season.

The Cougars’ next major competition is Saturday April 18 at the Blue Devils Relays in Westfield. On Monday April 20 and continuing the following day are the Mountain Valley conference (MVC) Relays in Berkeley Heights and after a day of rest, some of the team will depart for Philadelphia to compete in the Penn Relays. Grandal will compete in the javelin and Kelly Burke will be in the pole vault. The 4x400 relay of Englese, Humen, Gillian Burke, and Rebecca Shimonov will compete Friday and on Saturday April 25 the team will be splitting up to the Millburn Relays while the boys 4x400 of Sun, Cassidy, Ainge, and Pereira compete at the Penn Relays.