Cross Country, a Truly Stellar Season

As the 2024 cross country season reached its conclusion, the boys team would leave behind a truly great season filled with many achievements.

For the boys team the season started out strong at the Season Opener Invitational in Darlington Park in Mahwah, where junior Evan Caldwell and senior Joshua Donza would receive 14th and 15th places respectively with times of 18:09 and 18:04 minutes. The latter two would be followed by freshman Daniel Seminara in 29th place with a 5k time of 19:01 minutes. Coming after Daniel, seniors Gavin Raudenbush and Seamus Burke came in 32nd and 33rd places with times of 19:06 minutes and 19:09 minutes, and Jack Gibson in 37th place with a time of 19:25 followed up in 45th place by Jesse Freedman with a time of 19:48, Lakeland ending up with fourth place with a team score of 120.

This score would only improve with the next meet again at Darlington with the team getting second overall with a score of 45 seeing Caldwell in 3rd at 17:42, Donza in 6th at 18:14, Seminara in 11th at 18:44, Raudenbush in 13th at 19:02, Burke in 15th at 19:06 and finally Freedman at 19th and Jack Gibson at 20th place with both tying at 19:27.

The next meet at Garret Mountain in Woodland Park would see Lakeland continue to place high getting third overall in the meet with a team score of 110, seeing Caldwell in 11th place with a time of 18:03, Donza in 20th with 18:52, Seminara in 22nd with 18:58, Raudenbush and Burke in 29th and 30th with the same time of 19:12, Gibson in 34th at 19:32, and Freedman in 41st at 19:54.

The next meet would occur at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson and would see the team place 13th out of 18 teams, with Caldwell placing 39th with 17:25, Donza in 50th with 17:48, Seminara in 57th with 18:08, Burke in 78th at 18:31, followed closely by Freedman in 80th place with 18:38, and seniors Luke Krafton and Jonathan Tomasello would get in 96th and 97th place with times of 19:21 and 19:22 respectively. This meet was considered the teams best meet by Freedman stating, “Six flags was very fun and we had a good showing with a lot of personal best and had a fun rest of the day.”

The following meet would again be at Darlington would see the team massively improve from last meet by getting second team overall with Donza getting fourth place with 17:41, Caldwell in eighth with 17:58, Seminara in 10th with 18:15, Raudenbush in 15th with 18:35, then Freedman, Burke, and Gibson with 19th, 20th, and 21st places respectively with times of 19:04, 19:05, and finally 19:12.

The next meet would be at Lakeland and would see some of the best performances by the team seeing Donza in 1st place with 17:26, Seminara in 2nd with 17:53, Caldwell in 6th at 18:07, Raudenbush in 7th with 18:13, Burke in 8th at 18:14, Tommasello in 9th at 18:52, Freedman in 11th at 19:18, Gibson in 14th at 19:33, and Krafton in 17th with 19:45.

The meet after would be the Passaic County Championship at Garret Mountain, with this meet being seen by Coach Daniel Burkert as the team’s best meet, seeing Seminara getting sixth with 18:06, Caldwell in eighth with 18:09, Donza in ninth with 18:11, Raudenbush in 18th with 18:47, Burke in 20th with 19:04, Freedman in 23rd with 19:20, and finally Gibson in 32nd with 19:43. The boys team would get second overall with a team score of 61, this meet was considered the team’s best meet by coach Coach Burkert with him saying, “The County Championship was by far the teams best meet this season. The boys and girls team both out performed their team placements compared to last year. In addition to this all individual returners from last year ran faster times. The boys team had seven and the girls team eight athletes each earned all county honors.”

The boys would then move on to sectionals at Garret Mountain, seeing Seminara in seventh with 17:52, Caldwell in 19th with 18:23, Donza in 23rd with 18:30, Burke in 31st with 18:44, Raudenbush in 33rd with 18:51, Freedman in 40th with 19:12, and Gibson in 41st at 19:14, with the boys team getting third overall in the meet at a team score of 110. The team would then move to groups, seeing Caldwell in 62nd with 18:06, Donza in 90th at 18:50, Raudenbush in 111th at 19:21, Gibson in 113th at 19:26, Burke in 117th at 19:29, Freedman in 126th at 19:51, and finally Krafton in 148th at 22:33.

Overall this season saw a massive improvement for the boys team seeing the team place much higher than in previous years as well as them being runner ups in many of the competitions this season. When asked about improvements Coach Burkert would state, “We are graduating many seniors so both the boys and girls underclassmen need to be the next athletes up and ready to fulfill the shoes of their former teammates.” He would also give advice to future runners, “The season is made in the summer. If you want to run personal bests and help contribute to the rich history of success that this team had then your training needs to start in the summer with the team.” Freedman when asked about any advice he wanted to give would say, “Start early and run hard, peak late in the season but not too late.”