Madison Indoor Track Enjoys Valentine Invitational

The Madison indoor track teams competed at Drew University on Wednesday, in an invitational that honors the head coach of Dover, Wayne Valentine, who has coached at various Morris County schools throughout his 46 year coaching career, and is active in the Morris County Track Coaches Association.

No scores were kept at the meet, but top six finishers in each event were awarded medals. It was a tough day for the Dodgers, but mostly because their upperclassmen were sitting out for the meet.

"Not many of our more experienced athletes are here today," said head coach Mark LaDolcetta.

It was mostly younger competitors for Madison, putting them at a disadvantage against schools that were running their top competitors in the meet.

The Dodgers earned one medal at the meet–the result of junior Melissa Iskandar competing despite most of the other upperclassmen not participating.

Madison struggled at the start. Their best finish of the first seven events, for either the boys or the girls team, was a 19th out of 69 finish for junior R.J. Graddy, finishing the event with a time of 8.91. Graddy later placed 16th out of 78 in the boys varsity 300 meter dash with a time of 39.85.

Another strong finish came for the Dodgers with sophomore Connor Altier's 19th out of 60 place finish in the junior varsity 55 meter dash.

Two girls were in the top 50 percent of competitors in the varsity girls shot put event for Madison, with junior Elizabeth Hubbard taking 16th out of 44 with her length of 29 feet, 3.75 inches, and with senior Grace Marotta taking 20th with a length of 28 feet, 4 inches.

Junior Aaron Shinn tied for 11th out of 40 in the varsity boys high jump with his 5 foot, 3-inch leap.

Melissa Iskandar continued her recent string of winning performances with a sixth out of 78 place finish in the girls varsity 600-meter event, taking home the first medal of the day for the Dodgers with a time of 1:45.70.

"During cross country, they trained us for a lot of endurance. I don't consider myself a sprinter. I can normally run faster, but it's been hard because of all the endurance training. I knew during the last lap that I needed to go faster, but I'm so used to distance running," Iskandar said.

The Madison boys and girls track teams go to Toms River this weekend for the NJSIAA Group I Relays.