The penultimate Thursday of October marked the Somerset County Cross-Country Championships for Bridgewater-Raritan High School and its fellow campuses from within county lines.
In another strong showing for Bridgewater-Raritan, the Panthers’ boys’ and girls’ squads took home fourth place (104 points) and fifth place (130 points), respectively, amongst all Somerset County teams. Highlighting the overall results for the Panthers was senior Lukas Disko, who produced a time of 15:42 en route to a second-place result in the boys’ race on Thursday, October 24, at Pleasant Valley Park in Basking Ridge.
Disko and his fellow top-three boys’ runners were separated by just three seconds when they crossed the finish line, and they all finished at least 36 seconds ahead of the rest of the field.Taking home the gold medal was Bernards junior Brody Watt (15:41), while Ridge seniorBrendan McMahon (15:44) collected the race’s bronze medal.
Including Disko’s silver medal, Bridgewater-Raritan also had the following four results contribute to the meet scoring via each team’s top-five placements in the boys’ race: senior Nikola D’Amico (17:00, 18th place), senior Mukund Vegunta (17:29, 27th place), junior Michael Braswell (17:30, 28th place), and junior Anthony Ciminelli (17:31, 29th place).
Bernards High School (48 points) was crowned the Somerset County champion in the boys’ race as a team, while Pingry School (63 points) finished runner-up, and Ridge High School (82 points) placed third.
On the girls’ side, Pingry School (37 points) took home the title as Somerset County title, just six points ahead of runner-up Ridge High School (43 points), which finished a whopping 73 points ahead of third-place Bernards High School (116 points).
Leading the way for Bridgewater-Raritan was sophomore Sofia Daniels (20:23, 13th place), who contributed to her team’s scoring along with the following four Panthers runners: sophomore Kaitlyn Chu (20:30, 15th place), senior Carina Mastropasqua (21:56, 31st place), sophomore Lana Guelich (22:03, 35th place), and senior Stacey Yang (22:04, 36th place). Sophomore Sophia Rizarri (22:17, 41st place) capped off the results for the Bridgewater-Raritan girls.
Bridgewater-Raritan’s boys’ and girls’ cross-country teams will run in the North Jersey, Section 2, Group 4 state sectional championship races at 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m., respectively, next Saturday, November 2, at Central Park of Morris County in Morris Plains.
Per 2024 NJSIAA Cross-Country Regulations, new for this year’s state tournament: “The top 15 fastest runners in each Group (1, 2, 3, 4) will advance from the Sectional to the Group Meet. To qualify for the Meet of Champions, all six (6) Group Champions will automatically qualify. All non-qualifying teams will be merged- the top eight (8) schools after the merger by TEAM SCORE will advance to the Meet of Champions. All ties will be broken by the 6th runner rule, but the Group Champions will not be a part of the merger process.”
The Group 4 state championship races will be on Saturday, November 9, at Holmdel Park in Holmdel, and this site will also serve as host to the Meet of Champions on Saturday, November 16, to close out the season.