East Wins 3 Titles at Camden County XC Meet

Cherry Hill East’s Ben Dillon and Maddy Berman claimed individual glory and the Cougars took home the boys team title at the Camden County cross-country championships at Pennypacker Park Thursday.

On her first actual race at Pennypacker, Berman had to overcome a couple of miscues—a missed turn heading down into the trails at Mile 1 and another missed turn cost her about 10 seconds, but she’d put herself into the lead by the time the pack crossed the Cooper River heading into the late stretch of the race.

“After getting lost, it kind of threw me off mentally for a little while,” she said. “I stuck it out and I fought back for the spot, because I would’ve been really mad at myself if I came in second just because of a little mishap.”

While it may have been her first time on the course, Berman and the other Cougars know the park’s terrain, having used it for practice during the summer, so it wasn’t an entirely blind race.

“Once I got out there, I did what I had to do,” she said. “It still went really well—I’m very happy with what I did today.”

East couldn’t quite put together enough to claim the team title—Monica Lee was third in 19:40 and freshman Taegan Field claimed 13th in 20:50, but Paul VI put five runners in the top 20 to beat East by seven points. Cherry Hill West, which got its best finish from Gabrielle Nash in 21:28, was sixth.

On the boys side, Dillon, a senior, edged out sophomore teammate Aaron Groff by just one second—they finished in 15:52 and 15:53, respectively—and joked he was getting revenge on his teammate for out-kicking him in the last couple of races.

“It felt really good to go back and forth this time,” he said.

The Cougars boys were a bit off from the front of the pack in the early going, part of a strategy they’ve gone with lately, Dillon said, where the team goes out relatively slowly before kicking it up through the latter portion.

But Pennypacker, which is almost dead flat, apart from a downhill around Mile 1 and a handful of smaller hills elsewhere, presented a slightly different challenge, Dillon said.

“We just go out and try to keep the same pace through the whole thing, unlike Holmdel or some place that has a hill…there’s nothing really uphill in this course, so that helps,” he said. “This race went out really fast—we went through the first mile at 4:53.”

With Dillon one-two, the Cougars got three other runners—Dan Helfand, Christian Mele and Jeff Braun—into the top 10 to edge out Cherry Hill West for the team title.

The Lions bunched three runners together to hang on to second place as a team—Giancarlo Martines was ninth, followed by Tyler Brake (12) and Scott Sherry (13) to anchor the runner-up finish.

Both Berman and Dillon said their county wins should serve as motivation to press harder toward the end of the season, with the Olympic Conference championships on Oct. 25 and the sectional meet Nov. 9 being the two biggest meets coming up.

“It gives me a confidence boost heading into the next couple of weeks,” Berman said, laying out goals of first team all-conference and qualifying for a spot in the state group championships.

For Dillon, the overall team performance was the highlight of Thursday’s meet, as the Cougars work toward a goal of team championships in the late-season meets.

“We’re looking at a states title—we’re trying to win that,” he said. “We have a strong team all around.”