Girls Win County Title! Boys Finish a Strong 2nd!
Before she blew out the candles on her birthday cake, Paige Sheppard blew apart the trail at Warinanco Park when she took down the course record to spark the Union Catholic girls to a perfect score and their fourth straight title, and the Westfield boys and Max Bonilla of Elizabeth leveled up and scored impressive wins at the 87th Union County Championships on Thursday in Elizabeth.
Sheppard, second last year, celebrated her 15th birthday by throwing down the greatest performance in course history as the super sophomore burned up the 3.19-mile layout with a jaw-dropping time of 17:37 to break the course record of 17:49 that was set in 2022 by Peyton Hollis of Union Catholic, a 2-time county XC champ who is now a freshman at Duke.
Sheppard hit the first mile in 5:25 with sophomore teammates Cayleigh Kaiser and Sophia Thompson right on her side. She then ran 5:27 for the second mile and closed in 6:45 over the final 1.19.
The UC girls, under coach Mike McCabe, have now six Union County titles (2014, ’15, ’21, ’22, ’23, and ’24) and the Vikings became the second team in county history to post back-to-back shutouts. Westfield, led by the late great Thom Hornish, also pulled off the back-to-back perfect scores in 1995 and ’96.
The undefeated Sheppard, the favorite to win the Meet of Champions title next month, added to her torrid season. She also broke the CR at Oak Ridge Park last week at the Union County Conference Championships (17:13) and ran a sophomore course record of 17:41 at Holmdel Park earlier this month at the Shore Coaches Invitational.d
Union Catholic, ranked NJ No. 1/US No. 7, blitzed the competition in the girls by producing a perfect score of 15 for the second straight year and the all underclassmen pack matched their CR average with an 18:18 that they ran last year.
Check out these times from UC’s historic attack!
In addition to Sheppard’s record smashing victory, Kaiser finished second in 17:49, tied for No. 2 in course history, Thompson was third in 17:52, No. 5 all-time at Warinanco, junior Jimmiea King finished fourth in 19:06, and junior Emmy O”Hearn completed the shutout by placing fifth in 19:10!!! UC’s entire top 5 all ran huge course PR’s!!!
In the boys race, it was virtually a dual meet between rivals Union Catholic, ranked No. 8 in the state, and Westfield, ranked No. 4 in the state.
UC, which was seeking a fifth straight title, came up a little short, placing second to Westfield, 31-4.
UC went 4-7-9-11-13, averaged 16:24, and had a 1-5 split of 38 seconds.
The five scorers for UC were senior Evan Weber, fourth in 16:04, junior Elijah McCoy, seventh in 16:18, senior Aidan Cichocki, ninth in 16:25, junior Keandre Kelly, 11th in 16:34, and freshman Manny Sanchez, 13th in 16:42.
