What do a senior male sprinter, a junior female sprinter, a first-year senior male high jumper and a sophomore female thrower have in common?
Simple.
They all proudly represented the Hamilton Township track and field community by gaining medals in the June 16 NJSIAA Meet of Champions at Franklin High School.
The biggest prizes were brought home by Hamilton West seniors Jaci Summers and Arrington Rhym.
Summers’ consistent hard work paid off with a gold medal in the 200 meters and a silver in the 100. Rhym, a basketball player, tried track for the first time and promptly took fourth in the MOC high jump before winning the New Balance Nationals in Philadelphia two days later.
Not to be left out was the Nottingham girls’ team. Junior Jianna Molin took third in the 100 meters at the MOC, while sophomore Catalina Holliday was sixth in the shot put.
Molin and Summers have both worked with former Northstars assistant Curtis Whittle, father of former Nottingham standout and current University Georgia sprinter Shamali Whittle.
“Jianna and Jaci are somewhat similar in their passion for the sport of track andfield,” Whittle said. “The common denominator is they try their absolute hardest to get the work done.”
Summers was a football player convinced to go out for track by a West football coach. After a sophomore year of just running to run, he worked hard with Hamilton sprints coach Danielle Grady to understand the nuances of how to run.
Jaci reached the Indoor MOC in the 55 and the spring MOC in the 200, finishing 14th and 11th, respectively, as a junior. From there, he began training with Ewing’s Mekhi Stafford, this year’s 100 meters MOC winner.
“When Jaci reached out to me for help in the winter, I immediately knew the hunger was there,” Whittle said. “Ultimately for him, working alongside Mekhi and a few other top sprinters was a huge eye-opener for his surge to come. But I believe the biggest thing was owning an event, and working with him on the understanding and proper execution of zone discipline for that event.”
Summers had a strong winter season, winning the 55 in the Mercer County meet and qualifying for the Meet of Champions again before finishing a disappointing 21st. But that was just a prelim for the spring season, and Whittle set a goal for the sprinter.
“It was first understanding and developing a mastery of how to run the 200,” the coach said. “Jaci and I spoke about getting to 21-low, wind-legal time to be specific. And finally, to have success on New Jersey’s biggest stages, understanding how to win in various ways.”
First-year Hornets head coach Troy Scales, who served as an assistant the past five years, felt Summers was at a disadvantage in training, since Hamilton was putting new turf on the football field. Thus the Hornets shared a practice track at Steinert or worked in the hallways.
“It wasn’t the easiest thing. But Jaci pretty much did a lot of things on his own,” Scales said. “He was already a great runner, he was always a hard worker. He had to tweak his starts a little bit, and that gave him that confidence and encouragement to get better.”
Summers took third in the 100 in the Central Jersey Group III meet and the Group III state meet. He won his prelim in the 100 with a PR of 10.59, then finished a close second to Stafford in the finals.
“I wasn’t frustrated losing to him,” Summers said. “He’s like my brother. We practice with each other all the time. It was nothing more than a friendly competition. My goal for the entire year was to win the 200. I consider myself a 200 person for sure.”
Jaci has the walk to back up that talk as he took first in the sectionals, states and MOC in 200, running a PR of 21.38 in the sectionals.
“The 200 is a longer race, so you have to plan it out a little differently,” Scales said. “The 100 is just 100 percent go. But if you go 100 percent in the 200, you would die after 150 (meters). He always had a plan in mind whenever he ran the 200. He just stuck with that plan.”
Whittle felt that Summers used the 100 as a warm-up for the race he truly wanted to win. “There was no stress at all,” he said. “That’s a dangerous athlete. So the 10.59 and 10.61 by Jaci absolutely sparked the 200 victory, where he executed a very specific race plan, with countermoves.”
Summers was thrilled that he had come so far in just three seasons of track. “It’s a blessing,” said Jaci, who is headed for Meridian Community College in Mississippi next year. “I thank my coach Grady for putting me in this position to love this sport and supporting me throughout the journey. And I can never forget about the other coaches that took me in and helped me.”
While Summers is a relative newbie to the sport, he seems like a grizzled veteran compared to Rhym, who has to be the surprise story of the year.
When it came to the Hornet senior’s success this year, Scales deferred to West jumps coach Jerry Van Slooten, who has produced some great ones over the years.
“Coach Van Slooten always does a great job,” Scales said. “This year, we probably had some of the best long jumpers and triple jumpers in our program, and Arrington was one of them.”
Rhym’s amazing season featured a first at the Mercer Coach’s Classic (6-4), a second in the county meet (6-2), first in sectionals (6-0), second in states and fourth in the MOC. His mark of 6-6 could not win the New Jersey meets, but was good enough to win Nationals, as he won by 1.75 inches.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Van Slooten said. “Once he realized that he could be good at it, he just kept looking for ways to get better.”
While Hamilton graduates its two medalists, both of Nottingham’s prize winners will be back.
Holliday emerged as one of the top throws performers in the county this year. She won the Hopewell Sophomore Meet in discus (79-0), took second in the shot (36-09.25) and sixth in javelin (74-2) at the counties. In state competition, Holliday won the Central Jersey Group II title in shot (34-10.50) and discus (PR of 107-0).
She did not throw discus in states but finished sixth in the shot with a throw of 36-02.5, then uncorked a PR throw of 37-10.25 to place sixth in the Meet of Champs.
While Holliday was impressive, Molin was downright electric. Her time of 11.96 in the 100 meters in the MOC prelims tied West Windsor-Plainsboro North’s Victoria Henry for fastest time in Mercer County in the past 40 years. She didn’t equal that mark in the finals but her time of 12:09 was good enough for third.
“In the finals, my nerves ultimately got the best of me, leaving me a touch behind all the other girls out of the blocks. Though I felt I had more to give in the finals, I’m proud of how I remained calm and stuck with the race plan and ended up placing,” Molin said.
Molin is also strong in the 200, winning CJ II in 25.57, finishing fourth in states and 15th in the MOC. Not bad for someone who is only in her second year of sprinting after running middle distance as a youth.
“Jianna is just an amazing student-athlete, who’s worked extremely hard,” Whittle said. “She had to overcome a new training environment midstream and some injury setbacks. However, she was able to overcome these adversities, especially the mental challenges.”
Molin has been hampered in the 200 due to injuries, but plans to continue to work hard on it. Whatever she is doing, the aim will be as simple and pure as it was this spring.
“My goal really was to simply compete to the best of my abilities, no matter the outcome,” she said.
Fortunately for a quartet from Hamilton, the outcomes were pretty impressive.
Jaci Summers and Arrington Rhym, Hamilton High West seniors and high finishers at the 2023 Meet of Champions.,
