Clifton’s Heredia accomplishes quite a feat on his own by Paul Schwartz of The Record
HACKENSACK — A conflict with the state relays and major invitationals at Yale and the Armory Track Center left some gaps at the North Jersey Invitational championships Friday night at Rothman Center.
But Kevin Heredia didn’t mind. The Clifton junior had one goal in mind, breaking the 1,000 meter school record held by current Division III All-American Jeremy Hernandez. And despite essentially running the five lap race by himself, Heredia powered through in 2:38.2, three-tenths faster than Hernandez ran at the same meet three years ago.
“It’s extremely hard running by myself, but I knew I had to keep pushing,” said Heredia, who anchored the Mustangs winning 4-x-400 relay in 51.5 to end the meet. “I know how good Jeremy is and I’m happy to beat one of his records.”
Indian Hills’ and Englewood’s boys won the A and B division team titles, with the Braves edging Montclair, 44-41 on the strength of a second-place finish in the 4-x-400 relay and Englewood riding a 55-300 sprint double by Quanzie Lumsden to a 33-21 win over Newark West Side.
Clifton went 1-2-3 in the 1,600 and swept the first five places in the 3,200 to win girls A, 72-27 over Indian Hills, while Benedictine edged Verona and Westside, 34-25 for the girls B title.
The win thrilled Indian Hills acting coach Vanessa Valdes, who was filling in for the regular Braves coach at a meet she had run in several times as an athlete at Hackensack High several years ago.
“It’s amazing, because we had run pretty hard on Wednesday to get qualifying times for the Arcadia Invitational (an early spring meet in California) and they really came back well and took this trophy,” said Valdes.
The Braves didn’t win an event but managed four seconds and a third in the nine events to earn the trophy.
Lakeland’s Grace Yost earned her first major win, taking the girls 55 hurdles in a personal best 9.3 seconds.
“I like hurdling more than regular running because I think it’s harder,” said Yost, a sophomore and the daughter of former Lakeland boys track coach and current athletic director John Yost. “I wasn’t born when my dad was the head coach (1994-1999), but I know he’s excited that I’m running and I really like it.”
“Last year I did pretty well (with four steps between the hurdles) but at the end of the year I worked my way into three-stepping and now I’ve gotten a lot faster,” said Yost. “When I called my dad he was almost as excited as I was.”
Passaic’s Luis Peralta was also excited to get back on the track after a month’s absence due to illness. And the sophomore all-Passaic cross-country standout showed it with a terrific 2:01 anchor leg to win the 4-x-800.
“I felt great and it was great to run with the others guys from cross-country,” said Peralta. “They’re always supporting me when I was sick and we really bonded during the cross-country season (when the Indians won their first county title in 18 years). It’s great to be back.”