By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
Boy bands have to have a little bit of everything in order to get throngs of 12-year-old girls to buy their albums. They have to have the shy one, the party boy, the sensitive one, the bad boy. It’s a formula that has been working for a couple of decades in the music industry, going all the way back to New Kids on the Block and New Edition back in the 1980s.
Absegami has its own “girl band,” if you will, on the track and the Braves’ sprint relay team features a wide range of talents and personalities. These four seniors have become like sisters the past couple of years and are having a ton of fun out on the track every day this spring. It’s easy to have fun when you’re the defending Atlantic County and Cape-Atlantic League champions, and have a shot to win sectional and group titles this spring.
“Every time we see each other outside of the track we are like, ‘that’s my relay team.’ We really are so close. Even if we’re losing and discouraged, JoJo is the one to pick it up or gain the ground that we need at the end,” said Tatiana Beaufils. “I’m very negative, but (Johnson) is the one who always tells me I can do it and that I need to stop being so negative.”
Beaufils characterizes herself as the negative one who needs to feed off the energy of the other three in order to build up her confidence. Joshonda “JoJo” Johnson is the superstar — the lead singer, if you will — a hurdler and sprinter who placed in the top seven in the state in two events at last year’s Meet of Champions. Kayla Miller is the jokester of the group, while Cyann Moyer is the sensitive one who sort of takes it upon herself to look after the rest of the group.
“I have (one of my teammates) in math class, one in biology. We’ve all had classes together and keep our academics on track. We don’t want each other to slack,” said Moyer, who, like Johnson, is one of the top hurdlers in South Jersey. “Kayla is the jokester, I’m the happy-go-lucky one, JoJo is the inspirational type and Tati is the negative one. You get all that together and it’s a beautiful thing. One thing I can say is I’m going to miss this team when we all go off to college.”
What makes this relay team stand out is that each of the girls is planning to continue their careers at the college level — Johnson at Rider, Miller at Stockton, Beaufils at California University of Pennsylvania, and Moyer at Ursiline College in Ohio — and all four are tremendously talented and versatile.
“I get questions like that all the time from my top athletes, ‘hey, can I try pole vaulting?’ Or, ‘can I try this other event?’ And I have to say, ‘no, you guys do enough. I just need you to be good at what you do and keep working hard.’ It’s a hard-working group of kids and they take track seriously,” said Absegami girls track coach Dan Ingrum, a former Braves athlete himself. “I had the honor of coaching them in multiple events, because they are all over the place. They are all going on to college, which is nice. Tatiana is a good mid-distance runner and she’s our best pole vaulter, and Kayla Miller also just figured out this past winter that she can high jump. She’s always been a great 400 runner, and she can also long jump 17 feet. Working with athletes of this caliber has been interesting because they have been doing things together since their freshman year. They hang out off the track, they are best friends, they talk to each other all day. They are very involved in each other’s lives and they lift each other up. It’s great as a coach to see that. I was a track athlete and you don’t see too many bonds like the one they have. We’ve been trying to introduce new members into the relays because these girls are all seniors.”
At last season’s Atlantic County Championships, Johnson and Moyer went 1-2 in both the 100 and 400 hurdle events, Johnson finished second in the long jump, Beaufils took second in the pole vault, and Miller was third in the 400 meters. At the Cape-Atlantic League Championships, Johnson and Moyer repeated their finishes in the hurdle events and Johnson and Beaufils finished in the top six in the long jump and pole vault, respectively. The relay team also won both the 4×100 and 4×400 meters at both counties and CALs. They went on to finish second to Winslow in the 4×400 at sectionals, third in groups and sixth at the Meet of Champions.
Beaufils said being so close with her relay and other Absegami teammates is what has kept her going through high school.
“If it wasn’t for my teammates, I probably would have quit track already,” she said. “They are the reason that I’m here. We have a lot of potential. We reached our peak junior year, but now this is our senior year and we have to find that again.”
It’s a good thing she didn’t quit, because there are some big meets coming up in May and the relay team is going to need solid performances from each athlete if it hopes to repeat as champion. Ingrum said the team is coming together after Moyer suffered an early season injury, and he believes the sky is the limit for this group.
“Cyann had an injury early in the season, so we’re just getting back to full capacity. So, that’s been a huge missing component. Our freshman, Angelina Pollino, has stepped up to fill that role and she’s going to be one of my best going forward. But now that we have Cyann back at almost full strength, I’m hoping we can get back under four minutes. That’s really what I’d like to see them achieve by the end of the season,” Ingrum said. “I’m trying to get everything I can out of them, but, more importantly, teach them what they need to learn before they go off to college. That was a big goal of mine going into this season. I really wanted them to understand what it’s going to be like, and I want to see them succeed. We’re just trying to do everything we can to make sure they succeed on and off the track.”
Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays