BREAKING AWAY: Princeton High distance running star Alex Roth breaks the tape in winning the Princeton 5k last month. Last weekend, junior star Roth helped PHS take fifth in the Central Jersey Group 4 boys’ sectional meet. He placed second in the 3,200, third in the 1,600 and helped the 4×800 relay take second and set a school record of 7:54.53, breaking a mark set in 1981.

As the Princeton High track teams prepared for the sectional meet last weekend, they knew they were moving up in class.

Having typically competed in Group 3, PHS was elevated to Group 4 this year, facing larger schools and tougher competition.

Unfazed by the challenge, PHS rose to the occasion at the Central Jersey Group 4 competition at Hillsborough High as the boys’ squad placed fifth in the team standings while the girls finished seventh.

With a top six finish required to make it through to next week’s Group 4 state championship meet, PHS saw a number of athletes qualify for that competition.

As for the boys, the 4×800 team took second, setting a school record by over three seconds with its time of 7:54.53, breaking a mark set in 1981. Junior Alex Roth advanced in three events, as well as part of the 4×800, second in the 3,200 and third in the 1,600, while sophomore Will Hare qualified in the 3,200 by taking third. Other qualifiers included senior Nick Birnie in the pole vault (third), senior Theo Tel in the long jump (fourth), junior Cy Watsky in the 800 (sixth) and freshman Paul Brennan in discus (third) with a personal record of 161’ 4.

On the girls’ side, sophomore Jackie Patterson starred, winning the 400, finishing fourth in the 800, and helping the 4×400 take fourth with a school record time of 3:58.73. She was joined by senior Maia Hauschild, senior Jordan Vine and sophomore Caren Ju in the relay. The girls’ 4×800 relay took third. Senior Lou Mialhe made it through in three events: as part of the 4×800, second in the 3,200 and fourth in the 1,600 while sophomore Chloe Taylor was fourth in the 3,200.

“We put a big emphasis going up to Group 4; it is uncharted territory for us,” said Ben Samara, the associate head coach of the PHS boys’ and girls’ teams.

“All of a sudden, the seedings for us in all these events that we got through, it looks like we were still in Group 3. It doesn’t look any different, everybody stepped their game up.”

Junior star Roth took his game to a higher level as he nearly pulled off a distance double to go along with helping the 4×800 relay to its record-setting performance.

“Alex was a huge part of things, he had his best split ever in the 4×800, a 1:56 along with Cy,” said Samara.

“He hung with the top guys in the mile and then he came back and led the whole way until the very end in the two-mile and got a strong second there. He has developed into a stud, he always steps it up. The bigger the meet, the bigger the performance.”

For Samara, the effort produced by the 4×800 relay was one of the big highlights of the meet for the Little Tigers.

“That is a school record that has been around for a long time; we have taken shots at it a couple of times but this time it wasn’t even a question,” said Samara, noting that sophomore Nick Delaney and senior Jack Metzheiser joined Roth and Watsky.

“They blew it away, every leg looked incredible; they wanted that race very badly.”

Junior Watsky is developing into a top racer, becoming a standout in the 800.

“Cy has come into his own this year, he is a lot of fun to watch,” said Samara.

“You talk about no fear. He attacks the 800, he goes after it every single time. He has had a huge drop in time this year.”

In the longer distances, sophomore Hare has thrived from getting after it with Roth on a daily basis.

“It always helps to have a guy to train with to raise the level of competition and to raise the level of all these guys and Hare is right there with Alex,” added Samara.

“If Roth is second, he is third; if Roth is third, he is fourth. He is right there, just running with him. He showed a lot of heart in that two mile, running in that blistering heat.”

The Little Tigers got a blistering effort from Patterson as she set personal records in the 400 (57.27) and 800 (2:18.9) at the sectional meet.

“Jackie has now become a really smart runner,” said Samara. “Before she was so athletically gifted that she was running these great times and now she is running smart. She is following these race plans that we are talking about before the race in the 400 and 800. The fact that she is running the 800 as well now is incredible too because she hasn’t really done the long distance training.”

In Samara’s view, the progress shown by Patterson this spring has been incredible.

“We expected Patterson to be good but this is out of this world what she is doing right now,” asserted Samara, noting that Patterson ran a good leg in the 4×400 at the Penn Relays despite losing a shoe on the baton pass and that she went from fourth to first in the last 100 meters to win the 400 at the Mercer County Championships.

“Jackie has had a confidence thing we have been working on with her and I said to her over the last month, there have been two times (the Penn Relays and the county meet), if you can do these things you should not doubt yourself at all. You should feel you can do anything.”

Senior star and Rutgers-bound Mialhe has proven that she can excel in just about anything on the track.

“Lou is just steady; you are always going to get a nice performance out of her,” said Samara.

“She got through in three events, she had a great time in the 4×800. In that heat, she and Chloe Taylor ran a great two-mile. She is just so versatile. She is the New Jersey leader in the steeplechase and is going to nationals in the steeplechase. You can put her anywhere on the track. She could’ve advanced in the 400 hurdles probably, she didn’t even run it this week. She could be a member of our 4×400 if we had the room. She is such a versatile athlete and such a big part of the team.”

Mialhe’s versatility helped spark the 4×800 relay to a superb effort.

“The girls 4×800 was great too; their time would have won the sectional we were in last year,” said Samara of the quartet which included senior Emma Eikelberner and junior Anne Walker in addition to Mialhe and Taylor.

“They still ended up finishing third in Group 4 and they put together a really nice race. It was a lot of fun to watch.”

For Samara, the most fun of the day came in seeing the 4×400 come through after enduring a tough week.

“The girls’ 4×400 broke the school record by just a little bit, about 15 hundredths of a second,” said Samara.

“It was a nerve-wracking week because everyone of those girls was sick, Jackie had the least of it, but a lot of these girls were deathly ill all week because a stomach virus was going around. This is our special group and we circled the sectional date on the calendar. There was a lot of uncertainty this week, were we going to make it to next week. They just put a performance together that they needed to do to get through. They toughed it out, they laid there after that race for a good, long time. They were exhausted, they should be proud of themselves.”

And the whole PHS track program has reason to be proud by the way it stepped up last weekend against the Group 4 competition.