Union Catholic racked up a total of 20 champions on the way to sweeping the team titles in the Watchung Division at the Union County Conference Track and Field Championships, which concluded on Saturday at Governor Livingston High School in Berkeley Heights.
On the boys side, juniors Avery Atexide, Noah Cooper and senior Marcus McCoy each won two events for the Vikings, who received several PR’s en route to a 143-110 victory over runner-up Westfield.
Atexide burned a NJ No. 3 time of 47.97 in the 400, and came back to win the 200 in 22.15. Cooper swept the horizontal jumps with marks of 45-5 and 21-8.25. McCoy won both hurdle races with times of 55,78 and 14.75.
The rest of the winners for the boys were Al-Qamar Rojas, in the 100 (a PR of 10.89), Josh Hunsinger in the pole vault (a PR of 11-0), and Alessandro Alvarez-Tullo in the 3,200 in 9:47.49.
For the UC girls, who rolled to a 200.33-82.33 repeat victory over runner-up Scotch Plains-Fanwood, Taylor Cox, Peyton Hollis and Vonya Gould were double winners.
Cox won the 100 with meet record an PR of 11.74 and the high hurdles in 13.81 (a meet record 13.74 in trials). Cox’s 13.74 in the HH broke the meet record of 13.87 that was set in 2014 by the legendary Sydney McLaughlin of UC. In the 100 dash, Cox was one of three girls to run under the previous meet record of 12.04 in the 100 dash, which was set in 2022 by Julia Jackson of Scotch Plains-Fanwood. Taylor Aska of UC (11.77) and sophomore Delaney Farley of Scotch Plains-Fanwood (11.79) also went well under 12.00.
Hollis led a 1-2-3 finish for UC in the 400 (57.21) and captured the 800 in 2:14.78, and Gould captured the long lump (17-11.50) and triple jump (36-9.25)
Also earning victories for UC were Kayla Devine, who led a 1-2-3 finish in the 1,600 for the Vikings with a 5:02.83, Emma Muir in the javelin (109-4), Taylor Aska in the 200 (24.41), Sydney Chadwick in the 400 hurdles (1:04.13), and the 4×400 squad was victorious.
