GROUP LEADERS: Members of the Princeton High girls’ cross country team show off the hardware they won for placing first in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Group 4 state meet last Saturday at Holmdel Park. It was the first Group 4 title in program history. The Tigers will next be in action when they compete in the NJSIAA Meet of Champions on November 16 at Holmdel Park.

By Justin Feil

Kajol Karra was looking for a new start and a positive community when she joined the girls’ cross country team last fall in her first year at Princeton High.

A year later, she’s helping to pace the Tigers’ historic season.

Junior standout Karra placed eighth individually to lead PHS to its first New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) Group 4 state championship at Holmdel Park on Saturday.

“I definitely would not expect to be where I am today, but I am very grateful for all of it,” said Karra. who clocked a time of 19:26 over the 5,000-meter course. “And it’s very exciting to see the team get all the success and since we’ve seen how hard everybody on the team works, it’s very rewarding.”

All seven of the Tigers placed in the top 40 as PHS won the team title, 84-95, over Ridgewood while third-place Cherokee scored 118. Sophomore Grace Hegedus ran 19:32 for 10th, sophomore Eowyn Deess placed 17th in 19:59, senior Rica Eleches-Lipsitz finished 26th in 20:17, and sophomore Phoenix Roth rounded out the scoring in 30th in 20:26. Freshman Rosemary Warren took 33rd in 20:32 while classmate Sevanne Knoch was 39th in 20:44.

“I’m incredibly proud of our team,” said PHS coach Jim Smirk. “They’ve grown tremendously in the year. I think if anybody coming out of the fall last year pegged us to be Group 4 champions this year, they have a better crystal ball than I do. But the girls put in a ton of work. They’ve set their goals. They stuck to it. They committed to doing the work. And I think more importantly, they committed to each other.”

PHS has gained confidence with each race together this year. They came off a win in an ultra-competitive sectional last week at Thompson Park.

“I think it definitely gave us a bit of confidence knowing that we won against Manalapan and Freehold,” said Karra. “So coming into groups, we were kind of confident about that a little bit more than we probably would have been if we didn’t win sectional.”

PHS wanted to build on its sectional win. They were racing at Holmdel for the first time since the Shore Coaches Invitational on October 5, which Karra missed due to SATs. This time, with the full team together, they executed their game plan for the historic team title.

“It was kind of just to run our race and make sure that we won the battle that we were in,” said Karra. “Just make sure that we did our best and ran our best race and that we all kind of come together.”

The Tigers race together again at the Meet of Champions at Holmdel this Saturday. PHS boys’ star Felix Farrugia placed 31st in 16:55 to secure one of the last four wild card spots for the boys’ MOC after the Tigers took 11th in the team standings at the Group 4 meet. The girls will be looking for their highest finish in program history. They placed fifth in 2002, 13th last year and 16th three years ago.

“There’s an opportunity for us to take a step forward across the board,” said Smirk. “Meet of Champions is funny. You kind of go out there and kind of swing it out there and however it shakes out, it shakes out. I don’t necessarily know you can game plan too much for it because the talent is so deep. There’s a lot of things outside your control, so you really look to just kind of run the best race you can potentially run and try to run as mistake free as you can and hope it works out your way.”

It’s worked out for Karra since moving from WW/P-South after her freshman year. She had run cross country in eighth grade, but not in ninth grade. The Tigers gave her an opportunity last season.

“It was to kind of to meet people,” said Karra. “And I wanted to do a sport at a new school in the fall. So definitely meeting people was an aspect and I’d always liked running, so that played into it. But definitely I wanted a sense of community going into the school.”

Karra became a staple in the lineup last year, and found more success in her first season than she could have anticipated. That set the stage for this season and a significant jump in her times and places.

“Cross country last year was like my first season pretty much ever running, especially because eighth grade, I guess I don’t think that counts really,” said Karra. “I think coming off of the cross country season from 10th grade, I didn’t really have any experience at all actually, and it was kind of like my base was coming from pretty much nothing. And then over the course of the year, just all the training I’ve been doing, I think that’s what kind of added to that jump.”

The goals themselves got a foundation last year. Then they started to take a different shape after last year’s winter track season.

“I was kind of thinking of running a lot more competitively,” said Karra. “That was something that I wanted to get a lot better at. So I put in a lot more work than I might have if I didn’t think that way. And I think that played a part and I knew that I had improved from last year to this year in cross country.”

Her teammates helped to drive her further. Specifically Hegedus, who proved a talented freshman last year at the top of their lineup and began this season atop again, though Karra has finished a few footsteps ahead of her over the Tigers’ last four races.

“It’s definitely really great because we kind of push each other, not only in races but in practice,” said Karra. “We’ve trained a lot over the summer together and we do all our workouts together. So we kind of know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and going into this race, we’ve had so many races together so we kind of know when to push each other. It’s just really nice to have someone to race with and run with on a daily basis.”

PHS couldn’t have been happier how it’s worked out. They added a dedicated runner who has grown to thrive with her new sport and teammates.

“She just kind of gave it a try,” said Smirk. “She just kind of loves the kids on the team and wanted to work hard and that has paid off tremendously for us in part because she obviously is very talented, but also because she and Grace work so incredibly well together. When you can have a pairing like that, that can work off each other and play to each other’s strengths in a race, that’s a really difficult thing to deal with for other teams.”

The combination at the top has been strong all season for the Tigers. But what ultimately clinched Saturday’s state title was the second half of PHS’s lineup. The Tigers did not gain the team lead until their fifth finisher, Roth, secured their 84th point, 21 spots better than Ridgewood’s fifth runner.

“It’s been exciting on the back half of our team because they’re running incredibly well,” said Smirk. “And then because of that, they trust each other and then they take these kind of really meaningful risks. And then even if they’re not working perfectly, they know that their teammates right there. And so I think it really encourages them to try stuff that maybe if they’re out there by themselves, they wouldn’t necessarily think about.”

The risks and results Saturday pushed PHS into the Meet of Champions. It’s another chance for the Tigers to compete and prove themselves in a season in which they’ve already won the Colonial Valley Conference and sectional crowns. Karra has been embracing her second season of success with PHS.

“I’d definitely say I’m pretty satisfied with how I’ve done,” said Karra. “Of course, there are races where I’ve wanted to do better in things, but overall I think I’m pretty happy with where I’ve been placing and my times on certain courses. And definitely as a team I’m obviously very ecstatic because there’s not much better than first place. I’m definitely very happy with the team and how far we’ve come since last year.”

It’s worked out far better than she could have even imagined when she joined last year. She’s been a key part of the Princeton High girls’ success and one reason that the Tigers have a chance to make more history at the MOC.

“I definitely feel lucky to be a part of this team because first I just love every single person and we get along so well,” said Karra. “So I just love being a part of the team and the fact that the whole team is so deep. And I just feel lucky to have a bunch of people to back each other up in the race and not just like one or two strong runners, but everybody is very strong.”