Delaney Rice knew that she had a busy week last week, considering that the High Tech High School senior, who competes for Weehawken High, had two championship cross country races in a span of three days.
It certainly wasn’t scheduled that way, but the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic turned the cross-country schedule on its ear.
Rice, perhaps the most successful distance runner in Weehawken history, knew that she had to pace herself in order to compete in both the North Jersey Interscholastic Conference championships at Garret Mountain Reserve in Woodland Park on Wednesday and the North Hudson championships at Gregg Bayonne County Park in Bayonne on Friday.
“It’s my senior year and I wanted the chance to compete in a few races,” Rice said. “I can’t believe I’m a senior already. The last four years have gone by. It’s crazy. But I’m grateful to have the opportunity to run. I knew that many schools had closed and canceled races.”
While the pandemic consumed everything that was going on locally, athletics had to be the last thing on everyone’s minds.
But someone like Rice, who had dedicated her life to running, who has spent her life running with her father, Tim Rice, her mother Jill Kastner, older sister Carson and younger sister Avery, this was her final high school cross country season and Delaney wanted to make the most of whatever season there was to compete in.
And it meant running in two highly competitive races in 72 hours last week.
“I knew that running those races back-to-back was going to be difficult,” Rice said.
Rice more than competed in the two races. She won both, taking the gold medal in the NJIC Meet at Garret Mountain on Wednesday, crossing the line in a solid time of 21:41, then heading to Bayonne Park and winning the North Hudson Championship, in a personal best time of 20:56.7, almost a full half minute better than runner-up Marisol Vasquez of Union City.
Two titles in one week – it’s almost unheard of.
“My main focus this season was just to have the best season I could,” said Rice, who has to be considered one of the favorites to win the Hudson County Track Coaches Association championship Saturday, also at Bayonne Park.
Rice also had her academics in mind as well.
She’s a top student at High Tech with a grade point average of 4.581 out of a 4.5 grade scale and attained an astounding 1490 on the Scholastic Aptitude Tests.
Since High Tech doesn’t have competitive athletics, Rice has been able to compete for her home district Weehawken.
Just going from High Tech, which is located now in its new Frank Gargiulo Center in Secaucus, to practice daily with her Weehawken High teammates is a bit of a geographical nightmare.
“It’s a bit of a challenge getting to practice,” Rice said. “Sometimes, I’m 15-to-30 minutes late, but the coaches understand.”
Rice attended High Tech to get a head start on her dream of eventually becoming an architect.
“I wanted to be an architect for as long as I can remember,” Rice said. “My mother is an illustrator and because of her, I was always interested in art. I was really interested in the 3-D aspect.”
Incredibly, Rice grew up right around the corner from Weehawken High, so it would have been perfect for her to just get out of bed and go to school. But nothing was going to deter Rice’s dream.
“At the end of my block, I got the chance to see the New York skyline every day,” Rice said. “It’s pretty amazing,” said Rice, who wants to study sustainability and combating climate change in college. “That’s what I’m interested in.”
“I chose High Tech because of the design program,” Rice said. “I also love biology. I didn’t want to choose one over the other.”
Rice is hopeful to be able to compete at her best for the HCTCA meet.
“I’m happy with the way I’m running,” Rice said. “We’ll see.”
Regardless of what happens in the county meet, Rice will always have the two championships in 72 hours to add to her already impressive resume.
“It’s something that I’ve worked hard for, but I never dreamed it could happen,” Rice said. “It’s a little intimidating, but I’m determined to do my best.”…
St. Dominic Academy should be able to successfully defend the team title that the Blue Devils won a year ago. Senior Kayla Sullivan ran a 19:39.32 at the SDA Invitational in Lincoln Park a few weeks ago and should be the overall favorite to win the HCTCA title.
As for the boys, St. Peter’s Prep, ranked No. 5 in the entire state, should do well in the county meet. It will mark the final time that superstar Edwin Klanke will race locally, so he will want to put his signature on perhaps a track record performance. Rodolfo Sanchez is another of the Marauders’ premier harriers, also one of the best in the state. It’s a shame that there will not be a Meet of Champions this fall, because it would have been interesting to see how the Marauders would have fared among the state’s best…
We will have more from the HCTCA Championships in next week’s editions. For those who read this online, the girls’ race is set for 9 a.m. Saturday at Bayonne County Park and the boys’ race will take off at 10:30 a.m.
While the area made it through the first month of this COVID-19 abbreviated schedule, there has been a recent surge attacking the athletic scene, much like it has everywhere else.
In the past week, schools like Weehawken have joined Bayonne and Secaucus in shutdown mode.
The announcement Friday morning that Weehawken has been shut down as well means that Delaney Rice will not get the chance to win a county title after all…
St. Peter’s Prep, the state’s top-ranked football team, along with Ferris and Dickinson, saw football games get canceled this weekend because of COVID-19 cases.
It’s sad for the athletes, who trained hard and practiced harder in order to get the chance to compete. This coronavirus has been a killer in more ways than one…
Hudson Reporter High School Football Top Five: 1. St. Peter’s Prep (4-0). 2. Hoboken (3-1). 3. Union City (2-2). 4. Lincoln (3-1). 5. Hudson Catholic (2-2)…
Hudson Reporter High School Soccer Top Five: 1. Union City (6-1). 2. St. Peter’s Prep (7-2). 3. Dickinson (7-1). 4. North Bergen (5-3). 5. Weehawken (6-1). – Jim Hague
Jim Hague can be reached via e-mail at OGSMAR@aol.com
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October 30, 2020 at 09:30PM
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TASTY TIDBITS - The Hudson Reporter
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