At the Meet of Champions awards ceremony, the medalists are asked to stand by class.
Agrim Jha was the only sophomore.
The High School North student placed 14th overall in 15 minutes, 58 seconds in the MOC boys final at Holmdel Park on Nov. 15, the youngest runner to place on the boys side and one of only four non-seniors in the top 20.
“It’s a proud moment,” Jha said. “That’s also a really stacked field, and I knew a lot of the guys that were there, so it was really nice to get a little recognition.”
Jha led the Knights to 10th in the team standings. Junior Paul Wittenberg was 23rd in 16:14, sophomore Rohan Varma was 96th in 17:14, freshman Ashvin Avineni took 116th in 17:32, and sophomore Soham Shah was 128th in 17:46. That left North tied with Morris Knolls, but the Knights took 10th place on a sixth-runner tiebreaker when sophomore Sushanth Karri placed 143rd in 18:10, ahead of Morris Knolls’ sixth finisher. North’s lone senior in the lineup, Veejhay Roy, also beat Morris Knolls’ sixth finisher when he came through in 146th in 18:20.
“They finished 10th in the state, which is fantastic,” said Knights coach Brian Gould. “It’s a very young team, so we did as much as possible to prepare for this meet, but there’s nothing really like the real thing. So this was a really great experience for them. I think they competed very well. And it’s exciting that it’s such a young group because it was a good day today, but this is kind of just the beginning, I think.”
In the MOC girls race, Alison Lee concluded her North cross country career in seventh place in 18:00. The senior improved 14 seconds from the Group III state meet and was 27 seconds faster than last year’s MOC when she placed third.
Jha and the Knight boys can hope for similar type improvements for themselves. Jha missed advancing to the MOC last year when he ran 16:57 for 26th in the Group III state meet. After an outstanding track season, Jha has come back and made sizeable jumps to become a state medalist.
“It’s been a really fun season,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of fun working out with my team. We started all the way back in the summer, and our whole group’s been putting in a lot of work for this, so it’s been a lot of fun. Running with Paul has been really great. I’m really grateful to have a teammate like that who I’m able to run with.”
Jha and Wittenberg gave North a huge 1-2 punch all year. They went 1-2 overall as the Knights placed second to Princeton High at the Colonial Valley Conference Championship, and they helped North advance to the MOC while Princeton did not. Then they responded well to an environment that can be tough on first-timers.
“About half the team ran really big PRs,” Gould said. “So they had successes in that regard. And then at the same time, I think every guy learned a lot as well about what it’s like to be running faster than you’ve ever run, but being in 50th place, and how different that is. So it was good in different ways where they came away with PRs, but at the same time, they got really invaluable experience as well.”
It gave the Knights an encouraging finish to the season, and a push toward track season and next year. Jha can build on medaling in his MOC debut.
“For most our team, it was our first time making it to the Meet of Champs, so that was a pretty good achievement for our team as a whole,” Jha said. “And also, individually, my goal going into the race was to break 16. So I was able to do that for the first time, so that was really nice.”
Jha was coming off a freshman year that saw him win the 1,600 and place second in the 3,200 meters at the CVC Championships. He ran a personal record of 9:21.64 for the 3,200, not bad for someone who before high school didn’t have much experience above the mile.
“In middle school, we only raced 800 and 1,600s so growing up, the 16 was my favorite event out of the two of them,” Jha said. “That was the one that I really got an affinity for. And then coming into high school last year, indoor track I never really ran a 3,200. I really got comfortable with the 1,600, it was like, this is my favorite event, but once I started running a 32 outdoors I realized that this is kind of this is kind of fun too.”
It got a lot more fun as he improved. His endurance has increased over the last year, something he knew had to happen for him to be more competitive with the state’s strongest runners.
“I’d say over the summer this year there was a lot more focus on building endurance and really building your base,” he said. “That wasn’t there last year because I was kind of unfamiliar with that whole like building base, getting the miles and that was not something we were familiar with going into it. So I feel like this year there was a different focus. We looked at the offseason differently. I feel like we benefited from that.”
He also benefited from having a season of cross country under his belt. Last year, he was learning the courses and strategies to best attack each. That helped him handle the MOC better. Both the MOC as well as the group meets and the Shore Coaches Invitational are all held at Holmdel.
“The first time I ran the Holmdel Park, I was so surprised,” said Jha of last year. “I’m like, oh my, I don’t believe there’s a hill that is this big for people to run on. I mean, now I’ve got the experience of it. You learn how to run the course. You learn a couple of tricks along the way as well. So I feel like that was like the major difference.”
His success this fall sets him up for a big track season, though the chance to run at cross country regionals after the MOC was going to give him a possible extension of the fall season. Cross country has found a special place for him.
“Before this season, I probably would have said that track is my thing,” Jha said. “I used to love the 1,600. That was like my favorite event of all time. But I mean, after a while I really kind of started liking cross country because it’s all about you versus everybody else and you’re kind of racing and it’s more also like a team environment. I feel like track just doesn’t have that. But obviously the 1,600 is my favorite event, but I definitely say cross country is growing on me recently.”
Running in general has grown on Jha. He grew up playing soccer. When he was in sixth grade, his father suggested he run to gain fitness for soccer.
“Little did I know that over those next three years that I’d start loving running more and more,” Jha said. “And by my eighth grade year, I really started loving it, especially track. And then freshman year in high school, I had so many new experiences, made a lot of new friends, and it was just a lot of fun. I feel like that’s why I’m in it.”
A breakthrough mile race in eighth grade really fueled him to invest his time in running. The Knights have benefited from adding him to the mix in cross country. He’s become a front-runner over his first two seasons, and that’s set up a bright future with big expectations by doing a lot of little things well that add up to his significant improvements.
“He’s obviously a very talented kid,” Gould said. “But all these intangibles, he’s a hard worker, he’s coachable, he’s humble, he’s disciplined, he’s got everything necessary to really excel. I think the next two and a half years for him are going to be very exciting.”
Jha has other interests. Math is his favorite subject in school. He loves watching sports, and he plays the guitar outside of school. And he still plays pick-up soccer with friends, but it’s running that is his top sport now, and running that could see him standing alone among his peers.
“It’s really exciting for next year because me and Paul are probably going to be pretty good returners and we hope that we’ll be pretty high up in the state,” Jha siad. “And it’s just really exciting to have a good group next year again.”