Howell XC team is county’s best

CHRIS KELLY staff Above, Howell’s Kellee Hand races to a fifth-place finish at the Monmouth County Championships at Holmdel Park on Saturday. At left, Manalapan’s Laura Safer beats her to the spot, finishing fourth overall.

First-ever county win for Rebels; Braves’ Saffer is fourth

BY TIM MORRIS

Staff Writer

From the start of the season, John Hein declared that last year was no fluke for his Howell High School girls cross country team. He insisted that in 2003, they would be even better.

Not many were paying attention to Hein, then, but they are now, after the Rebels captured the Monmouth County Championship on Oct. 21 at Holmdel Park. It was the first-ever county title for the Howell team, which was never even on the radar until finishing fourth last year.

The Rebel girls are just the second Freehold District team to win the championship, joining the 1987 Manalapan Braves. The Braves were the last team other than Red Bank Catholic and Middletown South to win the county championship, until the Rebels ran passed a very strong Shore Regional team, 74-85.

"We have quite a group of sophomores, and our seniors came through for us," said Hein. "We haven’t been feeling that good (bronchitis had gone through the Rebels recently), but they went out and ran as a team. They showed a lot today.

"I knew it was gong to come down to a matter of seconds," he added. "Mel Ullmeyer has a great team at Shore. We had to have a great day to win. Things had to go just right."

One of those seniors, Jessica Hoffman, provided the winning margin for Howell. Her 29th overall finish (28th in team scoring) was 16 places up on the Blue Devils’ No. 5.

"It feels good to win it as a senior," Hoffman said. "It’s exciting to go out this way.

"I was hurt last year and couldn’t run in this race, so it was nice to be able to run this year," she added. "We were all watching out for Shore runners. There were two ahead of me, and I passed them."

Heather Garleb, the team’s other senior, came to the cross country team two years ago and helped develop it from the ground floor to the point it is at now. Like Hoffman, she was happy to be there when the Rebels won their biggest title.

"I’m glad I got to experience it," she said.

Garleb can appreciate more than any other Rebel just how far the program has developed in the last three years and what it means to win a county championship.

"I remember when it was me and Leslie (Holleran, now running for Rutgers)," recalled Garleb. "We recruited Jessica and then Kellee (Hand) came along, and I saw that we had something."

That something surfaced on Oct. 10.

Hand, now a sophomore, led the Rebels with her fifth-place 20:21. Garleb was next in 13th (21:02), sophomore Meagan Nevins was 15th (21:08) and freshman Lauren Wiemken, 16th (21:09).

The Blue Devils, led by the second-place finish of former individual champion Julie Ullmeyer, led the Rebels after each team had four runners across the line, 41-46. However, Hoffman’s 29th place allowed Howell to overtake Shore, which was also bidding for its first county title.

Hand may not have been there when it was just Garleb and Holleran, but she can fully appreciate what the championship means

"The county [championship] is something new," she said. "We’ve been talking about winning it for a long time, and to actually experience it is special. Team championships are the most important."

Manalapan’s Laura Saffer, who has been the top harrier throughout the season, had her finest finish at the county championships, taking fourth place. The senior clocked 20:11 in placing behind new champion Erin Enderly of Ocean Township (19:42), Ullmeyer (20:05) and Middletown South’s Jamie Liberti (20:08).

Saffer’s fourth helped the Braves finished fifth (136). Manalapan’s other top finishers were Sophia Machado, 14th (21:05), Jenn Barr, 17th (21:10), and Kristen Andrew, 27th (21:23).

Colts Neck’s girls were seventh (191). The Cougars’ top finishers were Danielle Plenzo, 18th (21:11), Kim Lang, 24th (21:20), and Melanie Mahoney, 32nd (21:31).

Next up are the Shore Conference Championships on Saturday, again at Holmdel Park. Monmouth County’s best will not only dual each other, but also the best from Ocean County. Jackson’s Jennifer Clausen has the best time at Holmdel Park this year (18:26) and won Friday’s Ocean County title in an Ocean County Park course record 17:32. Ocean’s best teams are Toms River East (the county champion) and Monsignor Donovan.