Hopewell boys have lofty goals for 4x800, DMR
PLAINSBORO » The Hopewell Valley boys track team revved up its 4x800 meter engine for the first time on Saturday morning and didn’t disappoint.
John O’Connor, Teddy Meredith, Tim Dolan and Sean Dolan went 7:48.94 around the track at West Windsor-Plainsboro North High to win at the Mercer Relays in their first relay outing of the season.
“I think it was under 7:50.00, which is destroying our school record,” anchor leg Sean Dolan said. “We should have some big success once it comes to sectionals and states season.”
O’Connor, stepping in for the injured Michael Pavicic, and Meredith took the first two legs before handing off to the Dolan brothers, who reeled in both West Windsor South and Princeton for a comfortable victory.
Pavicic, Meredith and the Dolans are coming off a second place finish in the 4xmile at the indoor national championships in March.
“I just know our team is strong enough to the point where no matter what the pace is, we can hang on to anyone,” Sean said. “South’s a great team, great program and have great athletes on the team. They tested us today. We’re thankful for that because sometimes when you come to these meets, it’s a little tough to find competition, but Mercer County is a great relay county. We had a lot of great competition all the way through, which is awesome.”
The Bulldogs expect to be in the mix for gold at the Meet of Champions in June, but first they’ll turn their attention to the Penn Relays next weekend where the Dolans and Meredith will add Amos Barnes to the mix for the DMR.
“We got really good depth,” Sean said. “We can put in guys and still run pretty well.
“Our goal there is top five based on how we’ve been training, but if we can get top three or win that would be a huge accomplishment.”
Two other CVC standouts who are expected to compete at the Penn Relays next weekend warmed up with victories as Notre Dame’s Haley Horvath cleared 11-00.00 in the girls pole vault and West Windsor South’s A’Nan Bridgett leapt 6-06.00 in the boys high jump.
Both Horvath and Bridgett were state champions during the indoor season.