Hare leads Princeton to second straight team title
MONROE » Will Hare firmly believes Mercer County cross country is the best in the state from a depth standpoint, so even though the Penn-bound senior had high expectations for himself, he knew Friday wasn’t going to be easy.
But Princeton was determined. Hare finished first (15:46.22) and Acasio Pinheiro took second (15:54.22) to guide the Little Tigers to a second-straight Mercer County championship at Thompson Park.
The 5K team win avenges a dual-meet loss last week to West Windsor South.
“It’s really hard to go back to back, especially because the race this year was so much deeper than it was last year,” Hare said. “It’s never fun to lose, especially when I haven’t lost a duel meet since the first race of my sophomore year. We were hungry going into today, and we wanted to show that we weren’t done this year. We’re here, and we’re one of the best teams in the state.”
Hare, who posted the third-fastest time (16:11) among 1,248 boys recently at the New Balance Shore Coaches Invitational at Holmdel Park, follows in the footsteps of his best friend Alex Roth, who won last year’s meet when Hare was the runner-up.
“I knew anything other than a win today would be kind of disappointing for me,” Hare said. “So I came in, took it from the gun. I made sure that downhill was going to be a race for second. That was my goal. That’s what I set out to do, and I think that’s what I did.”
Rounding out the top five were Hopewell’s Teddy Meredith (16:00.21), Nottingham’s Jonathan Torres (16:03.89) and Trenton’s Mulual Mu (16:10.67).
Hopewell, which also placed Sean Dolan (16:20.68) and Will Titus (16.23.22) in the top 10, finished second in the team standings. Ninth-place finisher Sameer Das (16:26.20) paced thirdplace West Windsor South, while Matthew Santamaria (16:14.05) came in sixth for fourth-place West Windsor North.
“No other county has three or four guys that could win the meet of champions this year. That just speaks to how good our county is,” Hare said. “And there are two or three teams in our county that could win the meet of champions this year. This is a great county. We all know each other pretty well. There’s no malicious intent within us and Hopewell and (West Windsor) South and (West Windsor) North. Their guys are great, too. It was our day today, though.”