Track: Highlights from the NJIC championships

The girls NJIC Patriot championship meet on April 27 at Emerson might have been the most competitive meet in North Jersey history. Eight of the nine teams entered scored between 41 and 74 points in the final standings and going into the 4-x-400 relay, five teams had a mathematical chance of winning the title. But it was Waldwick, which had gone undefeated during the dual meet season clinched its first title since 2019 by taking third, one place behind Dwight-Englewood to cement its 74-72 win over the Bulldogs.

New Milford was third with 69 points, followed by Cresskill with 68 and Leonia with 63. "Every single person who scored points for us won us the meet,'' said first year spring head coach Paul Marino. "We knew that every team had certain events that were their strong points and we had to take advantage of ours.

'' Going into the traditional final event, the 4-x-400 relay, Cresskill and Waldwick were tied with 68 points with New Milford (65), Dwight-Englewood (64) and Leonia (62) within striking range. But only two events earlier, Waldwick seemed out of it. But the Warriors took a pair of places in the 200, including a win from freshman Julia Elsasser and a fourth place finish from Trinity Cocchini-Leibowitz, who battled back from a near disaster in the 100 hurdles which cost her a win.

Waldwick followed that with a 3-4-5 performance from Brenna Heelan, Hannah Reale and Anna Moran in the 3,200 with all three runners edging Paige Barnes of Dwight-Englewood giving the Warriors a crucial 12-1 edge on the team that proved to be their toughest challenger. "We don't usually run Hannah and Anna in the 3,200 but we had to (today) because the points were so spread out among the teams,'' said Marino. "We knew Leonia would go 1-2 (with Daniella Cameron and Eleanor Jang) but we knew we had to get three places and at least two of them had to beat Paige.