VIDEO, PHOTO GALLERY: Cape Tech vs. Lower Cape May cross country

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE — The 2020 high school cross country season finally got underway under beautiful conditions at Cape May County Park Monday afternoon, with the boys and girls teams from Cape May Tech and Lower Cape May Regional in action.

In the boys meet, sophomore Zeb Hinker ran to an awfully impressive victory, posting an extremely quick time of 14 minutes, 37 seconds, to beat the field by more than a minute and lead his Lower Cape May team to a 19-44 victory.

Hinker led the race from start to finish.

Cape May Tech freshman Luke Basile announced his presence onto the high school cross country scene by placing second in 15:55. The time shattered the previous Cape May Tech record on the county park course of 16:12 that was set by Leo Zaccaria in 2018.

Lower Cape May then took the next seven places behind Anthony Maglicco (16:05), Elijah Jackson (16:20), Jesse Coombs (17:51), Sean Murphy (20:37), Anthony Gentile (20:53), Phil Jordan (21:16) and Connor Deignan (21:20).

The girls race experienced a rather unusual finish as two Lower Cape May runners who initially appeared to finish in the top two places were disqualified for missing a turn and failing to run the entire race.

Cape May Tech senior Lindsay Robbins won the girls meet with a time of 21:57. The Lady Hawks were guaranteed a 15-50 victory in the meet as Lower Cape May did not field enough runners to score as a team.

Cape Tech sophomore Emie Frederick was second in 22:14 and Lower Cape May’s Shea Bonner placed third in 25:32. Cape May Tech’s Alexis Sykes (25:49) and Jenna Kraft (26:08) rounded out the top five. Tech’s Gianna Taylor (28:03) was her team’s fifth scorer and sixth overall.