Everyone knows how good a runner Mainland Regional junior Alyssa Aldridge is. And the rest of the cross country field at the Meet of Champions on Saturday knew that if they wanted to win a gold medal, they would have to beat Aldridge at the 3.1-mile course at Holmdel Park. They didn’t.
Aldridge ran a blistering 17:55 to easily win the race (by 40 seconds over second-place finisher Brianna Gess of Haddonfield) and capture her second straight cross country MOC title. For her efforts, Aldridge is our Bunting Family Pharmacy Athlete of the Week.
Aldridge’s margin of victory was the second largest ever at the event, which has been going on for 44 years. Also, she became just the ninth girl ever to capture back-to-back titles, becoming the first Cape-Atlantic League runner since former Ocean City star Brittany Sedberry — who now helps train Aldridge — won the event in 2003 and 2004.
The list of accolades in just that one race continued for Aldridge, as she became just the 15 girl to ever break the 18-minute mark, and her time was a record for Cape-Atlantic League female runners. A day after winning the championship, Aldridge was named the South Jersey Track Coaches Association Girls Runner of the Year.
Aldridge showed a glimpse of what was to come as a freshman, when she finished second to Gess at the MOC. A year later, she took home the championship and was named the state’s runner of the year by nj.com. She followed up that performance last fall by taking sixth at the Foot Locker Northeast Regional at Van Cortlandt Park in New York, qualifying for nationals.

— Dave O’Sullivan, Publisher