The winter track season is finally upon us. The final program to begin their winter season does so today at the SJTCA Meet in Toms River at the Bennett Center.
The program lost a couple of big performers to graduation last season in Emmanuel Udotong (multiple events), Casey Bleistine (distance) and Ryan Addlesberger (defending state champion in shot put).
“We have a mixed bag of people out for the team,” head coach Charlie Kind said. “We have people who are serious about spring track, like a Mason Stepnowski. His whole goal is to come out and to break Shane McDevitt’s javelin record of 194 feet.”
“He will come out, throw a little shot put in the winter time, but mainly just get his body in shape and get ready to go so he can start the spring season off and running. Then there’s ninth graders like Rashad Raymond, who broke a lot of records in middle school and who is very serious about running.”
The boys side adds some major running firepower as a couple of cross country runners decided to run right into the winter season.
“Mike Ungvarsky has come out, which is huge for us. Max Adams has come out,” Kind said. “The boys team is going to be a really, really good team.”
The distance event on the boys side will be the program’s strength this winter season.
“You have a meet of champions qualifier from cross country coming out for indoors,” Kind said. “You have a kid coming back in Tom Long who was a meet of champions qualifier from outdoors last year and he just missed qualifying in indoors. He’s going to run the mile and two-mile. Justin Arnold has a year under his belt and you add Max Adams. We’ll be able to run a nasty 4×8 with those four guys.”
On the girls side, the numbers are down a little compared to prior years.
“We have Olivia Rocks back, who really does well and comes into her own indoors,” Kind said. “She’s a very good two-miler. Prisca Blamon and Marina Urban come back in the shot. Alex Keck qualified for states last year in Group 1. We have some talent.”
For the girls side of the program, Coach Kind thinks the sprint medley relay will be the strongest event.
“I would think with the team we have right now with Prisca, with Alex, with Olivia; I would think the strong point would be a sprint medley relay, which is a 2, 2, 4, 8. We’ve got a couple freshman shot putters out here who will be nice additions. We should be a strong throwing team.”
Cinnaminson will compete in Group 2 this year after competing in Group 1 last year and will have some very tough competition for this winter track season.
“We are the smallest Group 2 indoor team in the state. Delsea, Deptford, Camden, Woodrow Wilson and Willingboro are all Group 2 now indoors. All the teams we compete against in the spring, who we never had to compete against in the winter, we will compete against now. It’s going to make us have to fight for everything.”
One of the biggest goals of the winter track season is to prepare the athletes for the spring track and field season.
“Our workouts are very similar to what we do outdoors. The whole philosophy for winter track is to get them ready for spring,” Kind explained.
“Everything builds up to May. We want to win as many medals as we can and get as many people through from sectionals to states to MOCs as possible. It’s all about getting them ready for May, winning championships in May. Winter track is important, but spring track is more of a team sport. There’s no South Jersey competition indoors; you’re just running for a time. It’s much more regionalized in the spring.”
The winter track season kicks off tonight at 5pm when the Pirates compete in the SJTCA Meet at the Bennett Center in Toms River.
