A Meet of Champions qualifier, a CVC Valley Division team championship, a plethora of strong showings in the county and sectional meets and a freshman setting two school records that stood for decades highlighted the Lawrence High boys and girls track & field seasons this spring.
For the boys, senior Ji’Had Dicks reached the MOC in the 100 meters, while the girls team claimed the Valley Division crown by five points in a scoring system that takes place within the Mercer County Championships. The boys had two MCT champions and the girls had a Central Jersey Group III champ, while the boys won a combined 16 medals in the county and sectional meets and the girls claimed a combined 15 in the same two events.
“We’re happy the kids did well,” boys coach Nate Jones said. “We achieved most of our goals. A big one was to win the division, we came in second to Robbinsville last year, and unfortunately we came in second to Robbinsville this year. We had a good team, they had a good team.
“But in everything else, the kids did well from the indoor season right on through. They’re happy with a lot of their accomplishments.”
Dicks led the way taking fourth in the MCT 100 meters, second in the CJ III 100 (in school record time of 10.72) and third in the 200. He finished seventh in the Group III 100 but qualified for the Meet of Champs as a wild card. He was also on the Cardinals first-place 4×100 team in the counties and will run at Rowan next year.
“I’m very proud of Ji’Had,” Jones said. “When we took over the program we had 13 kids because it was the year after Covid. Ji’Had was one of those guys. We’ve just seen him grow and develop in four years. As he got better it seemed like the team got better. This year we had 102 kids sign up and get cleared and we carried over 70 guys. We’re very happy with the growth of the program and Ji’Had’s growth.
“It was nice to see him make the Meet of Champs. He was battling some knee soreness in that race so he didn’t run the time he wanted, but he finished with two school records in the 100 outdoor and the 55 indoor.”
The coach felt Dicks’ progress was due to his desire.
“He always had talent but we saw his work ethic, maturity and commitment to the sport improve,” Jones said. “From his junior year he just focused on getting better at track.”
Also part of the winning county 4×100 relay, which ran a 44.20, were juniors Tristan Jusino-Lansing, Jahlil Witten and Matin Mahmoud.
Lansing also medaled in the 110 hurdles in the MCT (5th) and CJ III (3rd) and the 400 hurdles (4th MCT, 2nd CJ III).
“We’re really excited with Tristan,” Jones said of the Brick transfer. “When you get a transfer you hope you get a kid like Tristan. His work ethic is great, he’s always looking to get better. He’s like a gazelle going over those hurdles.”
Mahmoud won the MCT triple jump with a mark of 43-0, and took fifth in CJ III with a 42½
“Mateen is another guy with a great work ethic,” Jones said. “We’re always yelling that we cannot be weak, we must be strong. We live in the weight room, we believe in the weight room. Mateen is in there crushing it with the weights and coming out and killing it on the jumps. He’s definitely committed to his craft.”
In the throws, junior Ryan Rodriguez finished third in discus in both the counties and sectionals, unloading a 146-6 in the CJ 3 meet.
“With Ryan, when you’re 6-6 throwing the discus there’s gonna be a high expectation put on you,” Jones said. “His parents were pretty elite athletes as well. He wasn’t happy with how he finished (in states) but we were happy to get him to that state meet and to finish as high as he did in counties and sectionals.”
Also throwing well in sectionals were juniors Joel Ceasar and Isiah Spencer, who finished 2-3 in the shot put.
“Joel had that big throw (46-0) at the end, we knew it was in there and he finally put it together at the end of the season,” Jones said. “He was consistently at 45 feet and over. And Spence is right there. He’s a huge guy. To see him transform his body so he could move the implements around was really impressive.”
Rounding out the medalists was yet another underclassman, as junior Aaron Mason finished fifth in pole vault in the MCTs.
“All those guys except Ji’Had are coming back,” Jones said. “I think the team is gonna be fat for the next year as long as everyone is healthy and comes back out. A lot of these guys work with their track club in the summer and stick with it throughout the year.” .
As for the girls, their success was somewhat muted due to injuries to top seniors Petra Doherty and Jewel Pierrecharles. Doherty got hurt during field hockey season and, although she battled, it hindered her throughout the track seasons. She did, however, win her second straight CJ III high jump gold medal but couldn’t go any further.
“She went to the doctor and shut it down,” coach Tim Collins said. “She just missed too much training due to the injury and never got quite back.”
Pierrecharles tore her meniscus and damaged her ACL while pole vaulting early in the spring season. Collins noted that “She missed so much time and never got back to where she was. So those two star athletes were competing for us but weren’t at the level they were at last year, so that kind of hurt us a little bit.”
Despite her health issues, Doherty still provided leadership and came up with some key points in the Valley Division scoring. She was named Lawrence High’s Female Athlete of the Year.
“She led the way,” Collins said. “Jewel was really important as well but Petra, with a combination of her sprinting and high jumping, even though she wasn’t 100 percent, she scored a lot of points in the division championship. She’s just a great example and great leader for our girls team, especially since they were so young. Freshman watch the older athletes, they watch what you do and she set a great example for that.”
One of those freshmen was Samya Jenkins, who burst on the scene in a big way.
In the MCTs Jenkins finished third in the 100 and 200 meters. She was part of the second-place 4×400 relay team in counties along with juniors Sophie Trzaskus, Zuzanna Trzasko and Julia Zaluska; and ran in the third-place 4×100 relay that included junior Alicia Riggins, Doherty and Pierrecharles.
In the sectionals, Jenkins was on another third-place 4×100 team with Soraya Parks, Riggins and Pierrecharles. She also finished second in the 100 meters.
Jenkins set the Cardinals freshman record in the 100 with a time of 12.33 and qualified for the New Balance Nationals in the 100 and 200, but opted not to go due to fatigue.
“She did a little bit of eighth-grade track and then she made a big jump,” Collins said. “No one was raving about her individually, and all of a sudden indoors she started running real, real well. She’s a good student, a nice kid and real coachable.
“If you rank her, she’s one of the better freshmen in the state. Like any other freshman she wasn’t used to working a certain level but eventually did do what we asked of her. At the county meet asked her to do four events. She was a little overwhelmed and didn’t think she could do it, but I told her I wouldn’t put her in if I didn’t think she could do it. She didn’t want to run the 200 and that was her national qualifier time with a 25.86.”
Along with her relay success, Riggins qualified for states with a fifth-place finish in the 100 hurdles. She was also third in the 100 hurdles in the MCTs, and although she was 17th in the 400, that still helped pocket points for the Valley standings.
All that after switching from sprinting last year (she reached states in the 100).
“We lost our best hurdler to graduation last,” Collins said. “I knew she was gonna get faster but I didn’t know where the top end would go, so I said ‘Let’s try the 100 hurdles.’ She switched over and had a fantastic season indoors and outdoors. She went from 80 to 78 to 74 in the 400 hurdles. That’s not at the county level but with the way she’s improving, she’ll be there next year.”
Junior Sophie Trzaskus was third in the MCT pole vault with a school record-tying mark of 9-0 after winning the sectional indoor title. An injury hindered her in the outdoor sectionals, “or she would have qualified for states and had a chance of breaking the record,” according to Collins.
Senior Jaylin Aponte took sixth in discus at both the MCTs and sectionals, and Collins said, “She was very unheralded at the beginning of the season and had a great year. She had a personal best of 95-8 at states.”
Junior Zuzanna Trzasko was fifth in the sectionals in pole vault, while senior Jasmine Eccles and freshman Gabriele Pociute finished 4-5 in the triple jump at counties.
“Zuzanna was solid all year,” Collins said. “Jasmine Eccles improved quite a bit and got all these PRs at the end of the season and provided good leadership. We’ll miss her. Gabi Pociute did really well in her first year.”
The Cardinals “hidden” gems are their freshman distance runners. Because the county and section are loaded with talented distance runners, Ava Donnelly, Izzy Meth and Slavina Dusichka did not medal in those meets. But the three, along with senior Melinda Jacoppo, won the 4×1600 relay at the county relays in a time of 22:11.12.
Even more impressive is that Donnelly broke school records that stood for nearly 40 years in the 1600 and 3200, as she ran a 5:12.31 at the Cherokee Night Race and a 11:15.98 in the Holmdel Twilight Race. Both times beat the marks that LHS Hall of Famer Beth Starr set in 1987. She qualified for Nationals in both races.
“She really stood out this year,” Collins said. “In the relays she ran a 5:16 split to anchor it, and it was really exciting down to the end. Her fastest time in high school was probably 5:35 and all of a sudden she pops a 5:16 split.”
Meth qualified for the nationals in the 3200 and ran an 11:29 in 80 degree heat, and she ran a personal record of 11:20 earlier in the year.
“If Ava wasn’t around, we’d be talking about Izzy almost breaking the school record,” Collins said.
The best news is that both of them, along with Dusichka, all have another three years to take aim on lots of records, as Lawrence High’s track & field program has a solid future for both boys and girls.
Members of the Lawrence High School girls track and field team are all smiles after winning the Colonial Valley Conference Valley Division title (Photo by Tim Collins).,
Tristan Jusino-Lansing clears a hurdle.,
