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May 12, 2004

A quarter-century of girls track champions

By TOM WILLIAMS
Sports Columnist


What were you doing in May of 1979?

None of today’s athletes at Ocean City High School were alive then. In most cases, their parents were in high school in ‘79.

Jimmy Carter was President and would lose to Ronald Reagan the following year. Ocean City did not yet have a field hockey or girls soccer team. Tiger Woods was four year old (he could probably already beat Bud Rinck) and neither Friends nor Frazier was even an idea. Charlie’s Angel’s was a TV show, not a movie, and the other top prime time TV shows that spring included Laverne & Shirley, Three’s Company, Mork & Mindy and Happy Days.

Just a few references to put into perspective how long ago it was that Ocean City High School’s girls track team began its domination of the Cape May County Championships.

The meet began in 1979 and OCHS, coached by Al Holden, was the champion. His daughter, Debbie, swept the 880, the mile and the two-mile. The Raiders also swept the weights, with Chris Quinn winning the shot and javelin and Margie Schoenewald winning the discus.

The event was not held in 1980 and Holden was pretty upset. He wasn’t notified of the decision until a few days before the scheduled meet. Maybe that is what’s behind this whole dominance, something like the “Curse of the Babe” has stymied the Red Sox. Maybe the Holden Curse has worked in Ocean City’s favor ever since.

Anyway, the meet resumed in 1981 and Ocean City has won 24 straight since. Holden won the first three of that streak, Mike Naples’ teams ran away with 16 in a row and Bill Moreland has now added five more. Many times, like last week, Ocean City outscored the other four teams in the meet combined. It has been one of the most dominant winning streaks in Cape-Atlantic League sports - probably in all of South Jersey.

Ocean City is the largest school in the county and that certainly gives the Raiders a leg up on the competition in a sport where an abundance of athletes is a big advantage. But they don’t have a dominant record over 25 years like this in any other sport.

There has been solid coaching for all 26 seasons. In Naples’ 16 years, for example, the Raiders won 13 league titles, won four South Jersey titles, were second or third in the South Jersey meet eight other times and won two state titles. There was, and is, a lot of talent in the program and it has always been well developed.

On the track, in addition to Holden, there were runners like Jodi Hickman, Pam McFarland, Carla Roberts, Melody Sye, Nikki Holzer, Shelley Solheim, Lauren McHale, Megan Hartman, Alison Amicone, Danielle Salvia, Colsey Moreland, MaryBeth Wendorf, Janine Minehan, Abbey Hartman, Kellie Adams and Jul-Ann Peterson.

In the throwing events, following Quinn and Schoenewald, came Ayanna Reed, Kim Lesko, Jacquie Amonette, Lora Stutzman, Missy Wildman, Diane Urban, Erica Dice, Maureen Dougherty, Shelly Meister and Serena Dice. And the jumpers included Mandi Wolicki, Joi Johnson and Abbey Woolley.

There were many more, but these are some of the outstanding athletes who established this domination in girls track.

Last week, three of these outstanding performers had their meet records at the county meet broken. All three of the former record-holders ran in the NJSIAA Meet of Champions and two of them supplied Ocean City’s only wins in that season-ending event.

Renee Tomlin, a sophomore who has descended upon the OCHS sports scene with an explosion this year in both swimming and track, sliced four-tenths of a second off McHale’s meet record for the 400 meters. McHale was an MOC winner in 1998 in the 800.

And Brittany Sedberry, who was second in the MOC last year and seems destined to join McHale and Megan Hartman as OCHS runners to win at the Meet of Champions, erased Megan’s 1600 meter county meet record by seven seconds and also the mark set by Megan’s younger sister, Abbey, in the 3200 by nearly 28 seconds.

There are only two Cape May County Girls Meet records not held by Ocean City athletes and the Hunter sisters seem to be focusing in on one of them, the 100 meter mark by Lower Cape May’s Angie Tecco.

For a quarter of century the OCHS girls track team has been dominant in the county. And with what two sophomores did last week – erasing records set by a trio of OCHS legends - who knows when it will end.

If ever.



Read more of Tom Williams' columns