Two win track honors for Delsea

Delsea's Austin Medley and Caitlin Baker were pleasantly surprised last Saturday at the 24th annual Camden-Gloucester County Relays at Pennsauken High.

The middle-distance runners won the Most Valuable Player awards for their teams, which won the Division 2 competition.

"I never expected the MVP [award]," Medley said. "The season ahead looks very promising for the team."

Medley ran the second leg of the 2x400 intermediate hurdles relay team that won in 2 minutes, 04.6 seconds. The junior also ran the third legs of the winning shuttle hurdles relay (1:05.2) and 4x200 (1:30.3).

Baker won the MVP award after running the third leg of the 4x400 relay that won in 4:22.3. She also won the triple jump relay with Kelsey Capelli with a combined jump of 58 feet, 11 inches.

"I was very surprised to win the MVP; I expected a senior to get the award," said Baker, a junior.

The Delsea girls won six events and scored enough points in nine others to win the title, and coach Jim Rafferty was cautiously optimistic.

"We're not where we want to be right now, but we had overall good balance," Rafferty said.

"This was a nice beginning, a confidence builder, a total team effort. We were all ready to go. We warmed up together and encouraged each other.

"I was pleasantly surprised with the hurdles, the four by one and four by two and distance events."

Rafferty is hoping that his middle-distance runners improve in the West Deptford Relays today.

Delsea's delight. The Delsea boys' team won seven events, but coach Ron Flaim was most pleased with the victory in the distance medley.

Nick DiTomaso, Dylan Wilton, Steve Buteniwicz and Brady Deckert won in 11:05.5, nearly 48 seconds ahead of second-place Cherry Hill East.

"The distance medley [win] was huge because distance is our weakness," said Flaim, who is in his seventh season at the helm. "It's good for the kids to have success like that. We've never placed higher than fourth in the DM since I've been here."

The Crusaders' strengths are in the sprints, throws, hurdles and jumps, which they will put the test today at the Bridgeton Relays, which they won between 2005 and 2007 and did not participate in last year.

Feeling good. When Washington Township beat Cherokee, 74-66, in a dual meet on April 1, coach Rich Bostwick had a good feeling about the forthcoming season.

The win over the Chiefs was the first for Township in five years, and the Minutemen took that momentum with them to the Rebel Relays at Howell High School three days later.

Township didn't win the meet; however, it won three relays, two in record time.

Kevin Lobban, A.J. Ashton, Devon Carter and Tim Carey won the shuttle hurdles relay in 1:03.8, breaking a school record of 1:05 set in 1998.

Carey, Carter, Steve Morrone and Xavier Fraction won the distance medley relay in 3:38.9, breaking the meet record of 3:39 set by Howell (year unknown).

All in the family. Timber Creek twins Megan and Michael Short have run all the way to Division I programs. Megan on Feb. 5 made an oral commitment to attend Longwood University in Farmville, Va., where she will run on the women's cross-country team. Her brother received an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., where he will be a middle-distance runner on the track team.

Their father, Michael Short, quit coaching football and track at Williamstown three years ago so that he could watch the twins compete for their teams.