Cross-Country Team Runs Well at Meet of Champions

On November 22nd 2014, the varsity Cross-Country team ran at the 2014 NJSIAA Meet of Champions in Holmdel, NJ, with the attempt to not get last place in the extremely competitive race. The team consisted of freshman Mike Cantaluppi, junior John Kolassa, senior Max Hubbauer, senior Paul Moyer, co-captain and senior Brendan Mairs, and junior Douglas Degolyer. The all-star team posted times of 17:37, 18:10, 18:12, 18:29, 18:30, and 18:47 against the top teams in the state, such as Christian Brothers, Don Bosco, and Summit. The team finished in 19th place out of 20 teams by beating St. Rose, which was the team’s goal at the meet. Oratory has only participated in the Meet of Champions three times in recent history, with showings at the legendary Holmdel course in 2004, 2013, and of course this year, 2014. The Holmdel course is widely considered to be the best cross-country course in the state because of the long hills and extremely fast downhills, which allows for the best test of a true cross-country runner, and the team showed that they were among the elite cross-country runners of the state, with many of these runners (including our own) looking to competitively run in college. The team used all of their remaining energy, with college futures on the line, to somehow incredibly do better than last year at the Meet of Champions, despite injured runners.