Cheerleading PHS: Third place CVC Cheer competition.
Cross Country Boys PHS:
Coming into the 2017 season, the Princeton High School boys cross country team had big shoes to fill. Last year, the Tigers team shocked the state, and went on a run to win the Mercer County title, Central jersey group 4 sectional title, Group 4 state title, and ultimately the meet of champions title. Coming into this season, the boys were hungry to repeat this success.
The team came in with the loss of two key seniors from last years team in Alex Roth and Cy Watsky. However, the 2017 tiger team returned a strong group of upperclassmen including Will Hare, Nick Delaney, Tucker Zullo, Acasio Pinheiro, Jackson McCarthy, Jackson Donahue, and the handsome Will Ratner. After a solid summer of training, the team was ready to pick up where they left off.
The team got off to a quick start, picking up three wins against Allentown, Hamilton West, and Steinert, all at Mercer County Park. It was a good start to the season, but many of the beautiful young men were itching for fierce competition.
To answer the tigers tireless yearning for a hard race, the tigers Varsity team traveled to Bowdoin Park in Wappinger Falls, NY, the site of regionals. Running without Acasio Pinheiro and Nick Delaney, the team was guided to a 4th place finish behind an individual victory from senior William Arthur Caddy Hare. It was a good look at the course for the Tigers, who would be seeing this difficult course later in november at Nike Northeast Regionals. The team had a long bus ride home, and Jackson Donahue and Will Ratner had the worlds best meatballs; but coach Dan Lee did not indulge.
The team faced their first in-county rival in Coach Brian Gould’s fearless West-Windsor Plainsboro Knight. However, the Tigers were able to battle off the charge of the Knights through the help of key races of sublime senior Alex Ackerman, and jubilant junior Tucker Zullo. The team also beat Robbinsville and Steinert in the same race.
Later that week, the Tigers got in one final tune-up before their invitationals started, with yet another convincing win over Hopewell, Lawrence, Hightstown, and Nottingham and new course Washington Crossing state park.
The boys next moved to one of their biggest races of the year: the shore coaches invitational at state championship course Holmdel Park. The boys obliterated the field in the Varsity C race behind a great victory from Will Hare, and an impressive run from Nicholas “Merlin” Delaney. The team was looking strong at the right time.
The boys faced their first hiccup in their last dual meet at Veterans park. Lacking Acasio Pinheiro, the team was out dueled by a strong West Windsor South team. This first loss in nearly three years for the Tigers set the stage for a great duel at counties.
In the week before counties, the Tigers team divided, going to both the Fall Xc Classic at Thompson Park, and the Manhattan XC invite at Van Cortlandt park in the Bronx. There were strong showings by both squads, who were ready for the post season to begin, and start bringing home the hardware again.
The postseason finally arrived, in a hard fought the race, Princeton was able to defend its county title in a victory over rivals Hopewell, and South, who had beaten them earlier in the season.
With their first title under their belts, the boys came back to Thompson Park to start their state circuit with the central jersey group 4 championships. Here, a familiar story would take place. In an all out race, the Tigers outran the Pirates of South by one point to win the section behind an individual win from Hare, and a breakout 11th place finish from Jackson Stroganovsky Donahue.
Returning to Holmdel Park, the Tigers squared off against top ranked Kingsway High school in the Group 4 state championships. Hare earned the individual state title, as princeton was guided to a second place finish, on the back of a standout race from junior Jackson McCarthy. The team had one more race in New Jersey, next week's meet of champions.
The team returned to Holmdel for one final New Jersey race, against the best of the best. In what was a hard day of racing for the Tigers, the team managed to finish fourth in the race, behind local Hopewell, Kingsway, and CBA.
In the last race of the year, the varsity team returned to famed Bowdoin Park, the site of one of the hardest hills, the bagel brain, a dreaded pond, and competitive races. Coming off of a subpar performance last year, the boys were motivated to perform well in what would be many of the members’ last races. The Tigers ran strong, and finished in 5th place in the region behind Xavier High School, CBA, Bishop Hendricken, and Kingsway. Senior Will Hare capped off his career by finishing fourth to qualify to the Nike Cross Country National Championship meet in Portland the next week, where he finished 103rd.
It was a great year for the Tigers team, and the future looks bright for next year, returning a solid group of fast young lads.
List of Achievements:
* All County Runners: (1st team: Will Hare, Acasio Pinheiro, 2nd Team: Alex Ackerman, Jackson Donahue)
* Athlete of the year: Will Hare
* Coach of the year: Jim Smirk
* 11-1 record in dual meets
* Mercer County Champions
* CJ G4 Champions
* 2nd in G4
* 4th at MOC
* 5th in Nike NE regional
Cross Country Girls PHS:
Ending the season with a 11—1 record, the PHS girls cross country team saw a rebuilding effort after the team graduated its 2nd to 4th runners from the 2016 cross country year. With only three of the top seven runners returning—Chloe Taylor ’18, Lauren Cleary ’18, and Erica Oake ’20—the team relied on strong leadership and a stream of new talent to secure a place at the states meet.
The preseason started on August 14th after weeks of consistent summer training and saw the sophomore year of the Freshman Academy program developed by Marc Bloom.
The first benchmark of team development was at the Bowdoin Classic, where only five girls raced the varsity race, allowing no room for error. In her first varsity race, Charlotte Gilmore ’21 ran a 21:00 and placed 15th, winning a medal. With the course being new to three of the five girls, the team adapted well to the course, and was rewarded with a 4th place finish.
At Shore Coaches, the team encountered a setback when Erica Oake ’20 could not compete due to a calf injury. Yet again, the varsity team raced with only five girls, and scored a 4th place finish.
Then, at Fall Classic, the team scored a 2nd place finish—by one point. Chloe Taylor ran her season best of 19:25, the fastest time on the entire team all season. Having not raced their 2nd and 3rd girls, the team was confident that they would perform better than previously.
At the Mercer County Tournament on 10/20, the team placed 2nd behind West Windsor Plainsboro High School South. Chloe Taylor ’18 scored a 2nd place finish, while Siena Moran ’19 scored a 4th place finish.
The girls JV and freshman teams had a great showing at the JV/Freshmen State Meet. Emma Lips ’21 ran a 21:36 and placed 11th in the freshman race and Michelle Girouard ’21 ran a personal best of 22:27. Anna Lieb ’20had a strong performance as well after returning from injury with a time of 22:50.
The NJSIAA Sectionals meet served as a litmus test of the season long effort to develop new runners. On the line were two seniors (Chloe Taylor ’18, Lauren Cleary ’18), one junior (Siena Moran ’19), two sophomores (Lizzy Hare ’20, Erica Oake ’20), and two freshmen (Charlotte Gilmore ’21, Chloe Ayers ’21). This race saw tremendous personal improvement, with Siena Moran ’19, Lauren Cleary ’18, and Lizzy Hare ’20 (who recovering from anemic previous weeks) having their breakout races—running personal bests of 19:53, 20:36, and 20:48, respectively. The team placed 4th.
After a successful showing at sectionals, the season’s slowly wrapped up with a state level, where they placed 14th. Chloe Taylor ’18 and Siena Moran ’19 obtained a position on the first team all county while Charlotte Gilmore ’21 and Lauren Cleary ’18 were placed on the second team all county.
Football PHS:
PHS Football went through a rebuilding year. The team installed both a new offense and defense and made considerable improvement throughout the 2017 season. The program had a solid group of young men who competed daily and are graduating 10 players from their program. Senior Marqui McBride was selected as a 1st Team Offensive Lineman for the WJFL Patriot Division. Senior Adam Musa was selected as a 2nd Team Offensive Lineman for the Patriot Division as well. Two juniors were selected as 2nd Team players, Stephen Hennessey and Isaac Webb. The PHS freshman football program played well together and had strong numbers. The freshman program had a healthy 18-19 players throughout most of the season. The varsity program looks forward to the 2018 campaign where they will have over 15 rising seniors for the next upcoming season.
Field Hockey PHS:
2017 Trenton Times Team of the Year
Our 2017 season finished with an overall 10-7-2 record led by 5 seniors with Kate Rogers, Lisette Dubow, and Lily Leonard as captains. The team had an amazing comeback season beating three of the 3 strongest teams in the county after initially losing to them in regular season play to advance to the Mercer County Tournament Finals. The team also advanced to the quarter-finals in our first year competing in Central Jersey Group IV.
Player Accolades:
Lily Leonard earned the title of All-Area DEFENDER OF THE YEAR and CJFHCA 1st team.
Kate Rogers earned both 1st team All-Area and 1st team CJFHCA.
Mariana Lopez-Ona earned both 1st team All-Area and 1st team CJFHCA.
Lisette Dubow earned 2nd team All-Area and 2nd CJFHCA honors.
Lila Doran earned 2nd team All-Area honors.
Soccer Boys PHS:
* NJSIAA Group 4 State Finalists (First time in PHS history)
* CJ Group 4 Sectional Champions (First time in PHS history)
* MCT Semi-Finalists Pennington 2 PHS 1 (OT)
* CVC Colonial Division Champions
* Final Record: 17-5-1
* Post Season Results / Opponents
Round 1 vs. Middletown South 4-0 (W)
Round 2 vs. Long Branch 2-1 (W)
CJ Semi-final vs. Monroe 2-1 (W)
CJ Final vs. Hunterdon Central 1-0 (OT) (W)
State Semi-final vs. Washington Twp @ Rowan University 1-0 (W)
State Final vs Kearney @ Kean University 1-3 (L)
* Mercer County Soccer Coaches Association:
* First Team All CVC: Andrew Beamer, Ian Jacobs
* Second Team All CVC: Noah Middlekauff, Dean Patel, Jun Hasegawa
* Third Team All CVC: Patrick Jacobs, Quentin Pompliano
* Honorable Mention All CVC: Noam Davidov
* CVC Midfielder of the Year: Andrew Beamer
* Soccer Coaches Association of NJ:
* All Central Jersey:
First Team: Andrew Beamer, Ian Jacobs,
Honorable Mention: Dean Patel Jun Hasegawa, Noah Middlekauff
* First Team All State: Andrew Beamer
* Final NJ.com Poll: #14 (All Public Schools)
* Final SCANJ Poll: #6 (All Public Schools)
* NJ.com CVC Coach of the Year: Wayne Sutcliffe
Soccer Girls PHS: Girls soccer finished the season with a 10-6-2 record. Our team was lead by 11 seniors this season. Of those, our two captains Devon Lis and Colette Marciano, have been named to the Mercer 33 team as well as All State. Along with them, Gracia DiBianco, Abaigeal Ryan and Shaylah Marciano all received ALL CVC recognition. The girls had some exciting games, including senior night against Hopewell, and our final state game against Freehold TWP(eventual State Champs). We scored a total of 57 goals, saved 127 shots and had 7 shutouts this season. The team has a lot to be proud of and a lot to look forward to. Our JV team had an impressive season with a record of 11-2-1. Go Tigers!
Girls Tennis PHS: Despite the loss of 4 out of 7 starters, the PHS Girls' Tennis team completed the fall season with an overall record of 15-3, and finished 2nd in the division, defeating top rivals in West Windsor-Plainsboro North, West Windsor-Plainsboro South, Hopewell, and Notre Dame.
Our 1st doubles team, Caroline Tan and Denise Yang, earned 2nd place in the MCT and were named to the All-Area and All-CVC teams, and our 2nd doubles, Sora Sato and Adriana Todorov finished the regular season undefeated, while taking 3rd place in the MCT. Our 1st singles, Spencer Watts, was named to the All-CVC team for her strength and consistency at the top of the line-up. Helen Bennett and Nicole Samios also had successful seasons at 2nd and 3rd singles for us. With a strong core of returning players, we are looking forward to next year!
Volleyball Girls PHS:
* Trenton Times Team of the Year, Coach of the Year, Player of the Year - Anna Cao
* Trenton Times All Star Team - Rachel Cheng as setter, Gillian Hauschild as hitter
* Adding the district-salaried position for a JV coach.
* Finishing 31-2 (undefeated at home).
* Winning the WJIVL championship for the second year in a row.
* Making it to the quarterfinals of Group 4 state playoffs.
* Having 5 players nominated to the First Team as All Stars in the WJIVL.
* Graduating our first player moving on to college volleyball (Anna Cao at Carnegie Mellon).
* PHS Hall of Fame Scholarship to Anna Cao
* Making memories that will last a lifetime!