East Boys XC Finishes Season Top-10 in NJ

Cherry Hill East put three runners in the top 100 in the entire state and strung together a strong pack effort in finishing out the season as the No. 9 team in New Jersey at the cross-country Meet of Champions Saturday.

Sophomore Aaron Groff led the Cougars and nearly matched his effort at the Group 4 meet a week ago, clocking a 16:14 to finish 28th overall, while senior Ben Dillon was just off his pace from the same meet, finishing 52nd in 16:32.

Dan Helfand (76th, 16:49), Christian Mele (109th, 17:16) and Marc Meltzer (111th, 17:18) rounded out the top five for East, which had just a 1:04 difference between its one-through-five runners, a better pack finish than five of the top 10 teams.

East finished as the second-best team from South Jersey in the championship meet, getting edged by Haddonfield, which finished seventh as a team, by five points.

Camden Catholic's Kyle Kirk, who qualified individually for the meet, finished 43rd in 16:27.