Ridge Wins 11 Medals at Indoor Track Meet

The Ridge indoor track teams competed at Drew University today, in an invitational that honors the head coach of Dover, Wayne Valentine.

Valentine has coached at various Morris County schools throughout his 46-year coaching career, and is active in the Morris County Track Coaches Association.

No scores were kept at the meet, but top 6 finishers in each event were awarded medals. The Ridge boys and girls teams combined for a total of 11 medals at the meet.

Ridge's first medal finish came with senior Jackie Madden's third-place finish out of 66 in the girls varsity 55-meter hurdles, with a time of 8.91 seconds.

"To be honest, I thought I was going to do a little bit better today, I wanted to hit my personal record of 8.77, but it was still a good performance," said Madden. 

Neil Franzese finished 10th out of 69 in the boys 55-meter varsity hurdles with his time of 8.54 seconds, missing a medal but still finishing in the top 15 percent of the race.

Senior Tim Lechleder came close to taking home a medal as well, finishing seventh in the boys varsity 1600-meter run, out of a field of 54. Senior Chris Traynor placed highly in the event as well, taking 13th.

Sophomore Caelainn Carney earned the second medal of the day for the Red Devils girls team, taking fourth out of 48 in the varsity girls 1600-meter run with a time of 5:36.09.

Rhea Phipps was just 1.75 inches short of first place in the varsity girls shot put, taking second with her length of 35 feet, 6.5 inches, winning the third medal of the day for the Ridge girls.

Junior Evan Roelke, who is not accustom to sprinting events, took fifth out of 58 in the boys varsity 600-meter run with a time of 1:28.76, winning the first medal of the meet for the boys.

"I've never raced the 600 before, because I'm a distance runner. I was aiming for the school record, but I didn't know what pace to go at, so I just went out with the pack and saw what I could do," said Roelke.

Allison Hodges kept the girls team in the top 6 with a fifth out of 78 place finish in the girls varsity 600-meter event. Her teammate, junior Samantha Menza just missed winning a medal as well, taking seventh.

"I was in second for the first two laps, but in the last 150 meters four people passed me. My legs died on me. If I could have just pushed through those last 150 meters, I might have been able to get second," Menza explained.

Jackie Madden took first out of 56 in the girls varsity 300-meter event, earning her second medal of the day with a time of 43.45 in the event.

Two Ridge juniors, John Bayeux and Jim Stamateris, placed in the boys varsity 1000-meter run. Bayeux took third out of the field of 44, while Stamateris took sixth. Both earned medals for the Red Devils.

Sabina and Simran Bains were 0.4 seconds away from each other in the girls 1000-meter varsity event, with the Sophomore Sabina overcoming her sister Simran, a junior. They took fourth and fifth in the event out of a field of 40, adding 2 more medal finishes to the Ridge girls team's tally for the meet.

Phipps earned a second medal with a sixth place finish in the girls varsity high jump, bringing the girls total to eight medals won for the meet. The boys earned three medals at the meet.

Ridge's next indoor track meet is on Sunday, at the Group IV Relays at the Bennett Center.