C.H. East runners bent on taking next step

The end of school used to mean the beginning of vacation for Dan Helfand.

The Cherry Hill East senior would enjoy two months with his mother's side of the family on the South Shore of Long Island, where he spent a lot of time on his boat, at the beach, and enjoying his time out of class for two full months.

This year, though, he watched his mom and brothers go away for vacation. Helfand stayed home. He had a purpose.

Last season, the Cherry Hill East boys' cross-country team won its first South Jersey Group 4 title since 1985. Including Helfand, Cherry Hill East returns six of the seven competitors who performed in state races.

Helfand wasn't the only Cougar to sacrifice a large portion of his summer.

With so many runners returning after such a successful season, the team put extra focus on raising its performance to the next level.

A group that grew to about 20 by the end of the summer got together every morning for 7 o'clock runs.

The team reconvened for long runs of 14 miles on Monday nights, hill work on Wednesday nights, and another training session that varied on Friday nights. Wednesdays also included a handful of trips to Holmdel, site of the state championships and Meet of Champions.

"We've had such a solid group of kids coming over the summer," said junior Aaron Groff, who noticed a difference from previous summers. "Everybody wants to take the team to the next level."

This season, Cherry Hill East has some big team and personal goals. Groff, the top returner from last year's Group 4 state meet, wants to win Group 4 and the Meet of Champions.

The team, as a whole, has similarly lofty goals. It wants to take the next step from its South Jersey title and win the state championship in Group 4, then compete for a Meet of Champions title.

Many of Cherry Hill East's runners are aiming to run a time of 16 minutes, 30 seconds at Holmdel. The thought is that last year's Group 4 champion, West Windsor-Plainsboro South, averaged a 16:29.91.

Matt Cieslik, who is in his 14th year as East coach, remembers his first season when his team celebrated running 10 miles in a day. He said his team now runs 60 per week without even thinking about it, as the Cougars have much bigger goals.

"I noticed that the kids, more so than ever, they want to talk about their success and they want to talk about making plans and strategy," Cieslik said. "It's all the time. We have a Facebook page, and they'll post things on the Facebook page. Kids will call me at all hours, and text message, and e-mail. They stay after practice."

The South Jersey title helped create a more driven team culture. The runners also think it will help the team in the future.

"Even though we lost only one senior last year, we'll lose four after the year," junior Cole Parsons said. "But with this team, we have spots that can be filled easily."

This summer, Helfand made a couple of trips to Long Island to see what he was missing.

"When I'd go up there, they'd be so happy to see me, and my friends there would be so happy to see me," Helfand said. "Come Sunday it'd be like, all right, it's time to go home. When I got back here, I went to practice on Monday and just be like, this is definitely what I need to be doing."

Helfand and the rest of his team hope it pays off by the end of the season.