The lady cross country team continued a tradition of success this weekend as they qualified for states for the fifth consecutive year. Yesterday, November 8^th, at the NJSIAA SJ Group 4 Sectional Meet at Delsea High School, the lady cougars placed 5^th out of 18 teams. To qualify for states, a team must finish in the top five of their sectional meet.

They had a team average of 20:28 (for 3.1 miles), with Missy Showers (’09) leading the way with a time of 19:27 and a 10^th place finish out of 119 runners. Following her was Meghan Marro (’09) in 16^th place with a time of 20:01, Colleen Thompson (’11) in 40^th place with a time of 20:53, and Natalie Kusza (’10) in 42^nd place with a time of 20:56. Finishing out the scoring for the cougars was Taylor Festa (’11) in 46^th place with a time of 21:03.

On the boy’s side, results were just as impressive. For the first time in eight years, East’s boys cross country team qualified for states. At the NJSIAA SJ Group 4 Sectional Meet yesterday, November 8^th at Delsea High School, the boys placed 4^th place out of 18 teams with an average team time of 16:56 (for 3.1 miles).

Team captain Dave Berger (’09) placed 6^th out 125 runners to lead the Cougars, with a time of 16:22. Fellow captains Nate Burt (’09) and John Arnold (’09) finished close behind, finishing in 16^th and 17^th place respectively. Rounding out the scoring for the team was Chris Dinh (’10) in 45^th place and Scott Zhao (’11) in 47^th place.

The NJSIAA SJ Group 4 State Championship will be held this Saturday, November 15^th at Holmdel Park in Holmdel, New Jersey. To qualify for the Meet of Champions, which is a race with all of the best teams in the state following the state meet, the team must place top three in their race. They can also qualify as a “wildcard” team, which means they must finish top three based on average team times against schools from different groups that did not finish in the top 3 of their race.

Also, should the lady or boy cougars not make it as a team, individual runners can still qualify for the Meet of Champions. Any individual that finishes top 10 in his/her race, or has a top 10 time out of the runners that didn’t finish top 10 in his/her race, will qualify for the Meet of Champions.