Cherry Hill High School East’s Boy Cross Country Coach, Mr. Christopher Corey (‘03), has been named South Jersey Boys Cross Cross Country Coach of the Year for the 2024 season by the South Jersey Track Coaches Association. Corey finally received this award, being nominated six times prior.
This was Corey’s 10th season as head coach for the Boys Cross Country team at his alma mater, previously working as an assistant coach for eight years. Corey also coaches the track team at Beck Middle School, with his 19th season coaching that team coming up in the spring. After graduating from East and attending Rowan University, he rejoined the cross country program, which he took part in as a student.
Over his tenure as the head coach, Corey’s teams have had great success. In the year prior to his elevation to head coach, the team captured its first state title in school history under coach Matt Cielsik (‘89). Having large shoes to fill, Corey knew that he needed to keep the positive culture that had been in the program for a long time.
“My mentality to get the team to be successful is that we want them to want to be at practice. I want them not only to be good athletes, but good teammates. It is a long season, starting at the beginning of the summer and going all the way through the end of November, and to keep our team working hard, I try to have a mix of hard days and fun days in our summer practices,” said Corey.
An example of this would be the team spending a day running on the Ocean City Boardwalk over the summer to break up the week and lead to team bonding.
Corey was extremely impressed with his team’s performance this year despite falling just short of Cherokee in the Group 4 State Championship meet, just one point away from the Chiefs.
“This was the year of second place for us. Cherokee has a really talented team, and we fell just short of them at every big meet. However, we placed fifth at Meet of Champions, which all of the best schools in the state, public and non-public, compete in, which I thought was an incredibly impressive finish for us. It was the first year in over two decades that three South Jersey Schools finished top five in that meet,” said Corey.
A big key in the team’s success this season was its experience and depth. Only graduating one senior in the Class of 2024, the team was full of rising juniors and seniors for the fall season.
Corey said, “We were the second fastest team in school history, and by the numbers, one of the fastest teams in state history that didn’t win a state championship, showing how good the competition was against us. Due to our experience though, we made so much progress this year.”
The team was led by the three senior captains, Brody Bogos (‘25), Brandon Lyons (‘25) and Nikhil Raman (‘25).
“Our team leaders are what make the rest of the team motivated, and the results showed for them and helped our team do so well. Brody and Brandon went to Colorado to train in altitude. That is a great example of the dedication our athletes show to our team,” said Corey.
When asked of his reaction to winning the award, Corey said, “Receiving this award is just a reflection of the hard work that the kids on our team put in. With our success this season, I hope that cross country can be brought into the limelight at East, as the accomplishments are truly great and sometimes get overlooked.”
Looking forward, Corey wants to see the team grow and for more students at East to come out for the cross country team, which had a roster of about 40 students this year. Performance-wise, he sees a strong class coming back to East, led by current juniors such as Alvin Lin (‘26) and Colin Moore (‘26), and he looks to again compete with some of the top teams in the state.
“We are ranked as the third overall returning team for next season, and I hope to see some of our guys individually recognized while also winning our big meets, conference, sectionals and states, as a team.”
The team has big goals for the future and looks to only improve by keeping a strong culture and working hard.