Before she blew out the candles on her birthday cake, Paige Sheppard blew apart the trail at Warinanco Park when she took down the course record to spark the Union Catholic girls to a perfect score and their fourth straight title, and the Westfield boys and Max Bonilla of Elizabeth leveled up and scored impressive wins at the 87th Union County Championships on Thursday in Elizabeth.
Sheppard, second last year, celebrated her 15th birthday by throwing down the greatest performance in course history as the super sophomore burned up the 3.19-mile layout with a jaw-dropping time of 17:37 to break the course record of 17:49 that was set in 2022 by Peyton Hollis of Union Catholic, a 2-time county XC champ who is now a freshman at Duke.
Sheppard hit the first mile in 5:25 with sophomore teammates Cayleigh Kaiser and Sophia Thompson right on her side. She then ran 5:27 for the second mile and closed in 6:45 over the final 1.19.
The UC girls, under coach Mike McCabe, have now six Union County titles (2014, ’15, ’21, ’22, ’23, and ’24) and the Vikings became the second team in county history to post back-to-back shutouts. Westfield, led by the late great Thom Hornish, also pulled off the back-to-back perfect scores in 1995 and ’96.
The undefeated Sheppard, the favorite to win the Meet of Champions title next month, added to her torrid season. She also broke the CR at Oak Ridge Park last week at the Union County Conference Championships (17:13) and ran a sophomore course record of 17:41 at Holmdel Park earlier this month at the Shore Coaches Invitational.
Union Catholic, ranked NJ No. 1/US No. 7, blitzed the competition in the girls by producing a perfect score of 15 for the second straight year and the all underclassmen pack matched their CR average with an 18:18 that they ran last year.
Check out these times from UC’s historic attack!
In addition to Sheppard’s record smashing victory, Kaiser finished second in 17:49, tied for No. 2 in course history, Thompson was third in 17:52, No. 5 all-time at Warinanco, junior Jimmiea King finished fourth in 19:06, and junior Emmy O”Hearn completed the shutout by placing fifth in 19:10!!! UC’s entire top 5 all ran huge course PR’s!!!
WESTFIELD AND BONILLA WIN BOYS TITLES
Unlike the girls competition, the boys race was a wide open scramble for the individual title and the team championship was a toss up between state powers Westfield and Union Catholic.
With a half mile to go it was anyone’s race up front as Ryan Daly of Westfield, Max Bonilla of Elizabeth, Evan Weber of Union Catholic, and Matt Ware of Oratory all had a shot to win. That’s when Bonilla put in a huge surge and grabbed control of the race and refused to lose, opening a 30-yard gap with a quarter mile to go and then hammering his way down the final straightway to secure the biggest win of his life, stopping the clock at 15:47!!
Daly, a senior, finished second in 15:55 to ignite Westfield to the team title, and Dayton’s senior Matt Ware continued his stunning rookie season by placing third n 16:01.
Bonilla’s 15:47 is the 10th fastest time in course history and his victory gives Elizabeth two champions in the last three years!! Bonilla is the third boys champ from E-Town. He joins the great Jean Destine (1990) and Lucas Reguinho (2022) as champs from Elizabeth,.
The victory was especially sweet for Bonilla, a senior, because a slight back injury had kept him from racing for the last six weeks. This was just his second race of the season. Bonilla’s only other race came on Sept. 13 when he won the Senior Division race in 15:11 at the Battle of Ocean County Park.
In the battle for the team title, it was virtually a dual meet between rivals Westfield, ranked No. 4 in the state, and No. 8 Union Catholic.
Westfield, which came up agonizingly short the previous four years when they finished as the runner-up to UC, finally returned to the winners circle with a hard-fought 31-44 triumph over UC, who was seeking a 5th straight title. Oratory, ranked No. 20 in the state, had its highest finish ever by placing third with 105 points, and ran a school course record average of 16:59!!
Westfield and Union Catholic both jammed their five scorers in the top 13, but Westfield had the edge at each spot as the Blue Devils had a scoring combination of 2-5-6-8-10, averaged 16:15, and had a compression of 37 seconds. UC went 4-7-9-11-13, averaged 16:24, and had a 1-5 split of 38 seconds.
This is Westfield’s first title since 2019 as the Blue Devils extended their county record to 38 titles!!
Westfield’s scorers were Daly, second in 15:55 (No. 23 in course history), senior Kaleb Stoeckman, fifth in 16:12, junior Brody Toriello, sixth in 16:12, senior Cole Varner, eighth in 16:21, and sophomore Alexander Davlourous, 10th in 16:32.
This victory was especially satisfying for Westfield because they were huge favorites to win last year, but were upset by UC, 26-35. Westfield won the sectional title, the State Group 4 title, placed second at the Meet of Champions and earned a berth in the Nike Nationals last year when the Blue Devils had their best team in school history. But the county title eluded them.
Despite losing its top five finishers from this meet last year to graduation, Westfield, led by coach Chris Tafelski, was determined to turn the frustration of losing the county championship last year into jubilation this season. That’s just what they did!
