PARSIPPANY — Joey Pangallo has won plenty of awards for his fleet feet. But Pangallo, a Hackettstown junior, had never been part of a cross country team before.
Pangallo won the NJSIAA North 2 Group 2 title on Oct. 31. When he goes to Holmdel Park for the Group Championships, he’ll have the Tigers with him.
Advertisement
Hackettstown finished third as a team, behind champion Mendham and Lyndhurst. And the Tigers’ history wasn’t done, as junior Bella Sisto also won the individual gold medal.
She and Pangallo are each the second Hackettstown sectional champions ever. Sisto, one of two Tigers varsity girls, fell and bloodied her right knee about 1½ miles into the race. She was in second place behind Voorhees junior Zoe Saksa.
“I did not think I was going to get first,” said Sisto, who is in her second cross-country season. “I fell, and that was all that was in my mind. But I didn’t want to give up.”
Advertisement
For qualifying, the Tigers boys get to shave Joey’s dad Jim Pangallo’s overgrown beard. He’d promised to let them shave his head if they finished first as a team.
“The team got my nerves down,” said Joey Pangallo, who used to get nauseous before races. “I’ve got a lot of people to train with.”
The top five teams and the first 15 runners from each race will advance to the Group championships on Nov. 7 at Holmdel Park.
The Mendham boys and girls will both be there, after each captured North 2 Group 2. The Minutemen girls finished in a tie with Voorhees, which was broken by the sixth runner’s placement.
Advertisement
“It was hard, because I was doing my best the entire race,” said Mendham senior Maeve Murray, who was 17th – with her last teammate, sophomore Chloe Gleason, just one spot back.
“It feels great. It’s our last race here, and we wanted to make it count. That’s what we said at the start line.”
Brayden Lo hadn’t seriously considered winning North 2 Group 1 until he compared qualifiers’ times with his own. That’s when the Whippany Park senior decided, “Why not? Last meet, might as well go all out.”
Lo crossed the line first in 16:39.18, a personal best and under his goal time by tenths of a second. He helped the Wildcats finish second to Verona as a team, qualifying for the Group 2 championships. Rutherford, Secaucus and Hanover Park will also move on.
Advertisement
Despite running alone and having to cut the wind himself, Lo “pretended everyone else I normally run with was still there.’
Added Lo, “You’ve got to pick up your mentality and stay strong.”
The Verona girls also won North 2 Group 1 and will move on as a team, along with Weehawken, Hanover Park, Whippany Park and Belvidere.
More: Montville, Mendham claim team titles at Morris County XC championships
Belvidere senior Alex Ferreira was excited to finally make it through the North 2 Group 1 race. Two years ago, she pushed too hard after an injury and wound up in the medical tent, and wasn’t able to compete at all last fall.
Advertisement
Ferreira is Belvidere’s first sectional cross country champion.
“It’s such a nice course, because we’re at Holmdel so much,” said Ferreira, who will move on to the Group 1 championships with teammate Bennett Linder, who finished fifth on the boys side. “It’s nice to have something a little flatter before we go back there.”
Last year, Nolan Holliss quit ice hockey and lacrosse to dedicate himself to running. The improvement showed, as the Watchung Hills junior won North 2 Group 4.
“I knew I had potential for this. I love the pain,” said Holliss, gold sectional medal hanging around his neck. “Everyone pushes each other to be good. It’s collective. There’s no skills. The work you put in is what you’re going to get out.”
In his first year of cross country, North Hunterdon junior Evan Schmidt brought home the North 2 Group 3 title. He also helped the team defend the team plaque, and head off to Holmdel together.
Advertisement
The North Hunterdon girls, which have won a state-best 15 Central Jersey sectional titles, added its sixth straight in North 2 Group 3 on Halloween.
Schmidt, a former soccer player, had set up a race plan with teammate Matt Hillmann. Whoever went out first, the other would try to stick with him.
“I thought I would make the decision and see what happens,” said Schmidt, who had never won a cross-country race before. “It hasn’t hit me yet. It was hard. I’m still dead.”
More: New champions crowned at NJAC cross country
North 2 Group 3 champ Sophia Burgo is also in her first cross-country season after moving over from soccer. Burgo spent the summer before her freshman year at Chatham training for the soccer team’s two-mile tryout test, “and I’ve been running every day since.”
Advertisement
“In the race, you’re one on one with yourself,” said Burgo, who dropped a 23-second PR of 18:27.9. “A coach can’t yell at you. You’re in your own head, yelling at yourself.”
This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Cross-country teams double up at North 2 sectional meet
