2005 Union County Outdoor Boys Relays

Twelve days after they fended off Union’s threat to their 22 year dual meet winning streak with a two point victory, the Scotch Plains Fanwood Boys Track team and the Farmers engaged in another thrilling battle at the 62nd Union County Relays at Hub Stine Field in Plainfield with Union prevailing this time 69-64.

“It looks like it’s going to be us against Union all year. It’s our depth against their superstars (All state Chris Haley and Latif Brewer),” said Raider Boys Coach Rich McGriff.

The victory came despite superb efforts from the Raiders’ all-around stars sophomore Kyle Rowbotham and senior Sean Smith.

Smith (56.6) and Rowbotham (58.7) teamed with sophomore pole-vaulter Tom Penella (59.4) to win the 3 by 400 hurdles in a time of 2:54.7 edging Union by half a second.

“This is one of our strongest events, and we needed 10 points here. Pennella broke 60 for the first time ever. He is an exceptional athlete, and we will be looking for more ways to utilize his talent,” said Coach Jeff Koegel.

Smith (6'-2) and Rowbotham (5'6") combined with Iceberg Bryant (5'8") to win the high jump over Union and Haley, who had the top individual performance (6-4). Bryant was jumping in his first major competition this spring after breaking his foot.

“Having Iceberg back from his broken foot has made us a much better team in the jumps,” said Koegel.

Rowbotham gained a third gold medal in the triple jump where he combined with Nehemiah Burney-Porter. Rowbotham’s jump of (43'6.1/4 broke Brian Kopnicki’s school record.

“He has tremendous potential to go a lot further than that,” said McGriff

Union finished second in all three of Rowbotham’s gold medal winning efforts.

In his fourth event, Rowbotham jumped 20-4, and combined with Bryant and Burney-Porter to finish fourth with a combined 56-4.1/2.
“This is an event where we should have done much better. This really hurt us in the overall scoring,” said Koegel.

Pennella and Max Carow added a third in the pole vault where the
Westfield duo of Mike Woods and Mike Gorski of Westfield tied the meet record they set last year when they combined for 27-0 in the boys' pole vault. Woods made 14-0 and Gorski 13-0.

In the distances, the Raiders got points from both their distance medley (fourth) and their 4 by 1600 team (third). Josh Zinman and Mike Miller ran on each team.

The Raider trio of senior Teddy Acosta, sophomore and freshman Mike Alleman appeared to have the title sewn up but their combined 130-6 effort was eclipsed by Rahway on the last throw.

Acosta, Badalia and Marc Fabiano also finished third in the discus behind Rahway and Linden but without Greg Brand they were unable to place in the javelin a key loss of points because Smith was used in the event.

“The javelin killed us,” said Koegel.
“We were missing our second best thrower, and in addition to not scoring, that gave us an event that Smith didn't score in. Had we known that was going to happen, we would have taken him out of there and put him on a 4 x 200 or put together a sprint medley with him. We wound up only having him scoring in two events rather than four.”

The Raiders trailed 68-64 going into the final 4 by 400 but Union clinched the meet with a sixth while the Raiders failed to place.

Led by their pole vault duo, Westfield finished sixth with 34 points. The Blue Devils placed in all four distance-running events but were unable to defeat powerful Cranford in the 4 by 1600 or the distance medley, where they were second or the 4 by 800 where they placed third.