Prep County Meet: Blanchard and Sallade lead fast girls race, Meyer gets first win, Lawrenceville sweeps team competition

While the CVC schools were duking it out at Thompson Park on Thursday afternoon, the non-CVC schools got together for their own county meet at Rosedale Park for the Pennington Cross County Invitational — aka the Prep County Meet. There were plenty of notable performances by these schools as well! Full results here.

Girls Highlights

The girls times were very fast, and that all started with Wilbeforce’s dynamic duo of Stella Blanchard and Laura Sallade. The teammates worked together the whole way and pushed each other to incredible results of 18:35.6 and 18:38.7, with the junior Blanchard ultimately edging the senior Sallade by just 3 seconds. Those blistering times were almost as fast as what these girls ran at Peddie’s Jerry Hart Invitational — and Pennington’s Rosedale course is a hillier and has rougher terrain. 

Peddie’s Caitlin Williams actually did beat her best time from her flatter home course, thanks to a gutsy run where she stuck with the Wilberforce stars until the latter stages of the race. The senior was rewarded with an great new PR of 19:12.3 for 3rd place.

The fast times didn’t stop with the top three: five more girls broke 20:00. First among those was Hun sophomore Lulu Cattaneo, who had a breakout race and shattered her 5K PR with a 19:41.9 for 4th place. She became just the second Hun girl to ever go sub-20. 

Lawrenceville junior Rory Laubach followed closely in a new PR of 19:43.2 for 5th place, with her teammate Essie Chafin just couple seconds behind in her own PR of 19:46.5 for 7th place. That was an especially inspiring performance by the senior Chafin, who officially broke the 20-minute barrier for the first time after coming close in each of the past four years. Peddie senior Shanel Tan split the Big Red teammates to take 6th place in 19:44.9.

Pennington senior Emma Normand was running alone for the last stretch of this race, but she had enough internal drive to finish strong, dip under 20:00, and earn a 40-second PR of 19:58.6. Like Hun’s Cattaneo, she became just the second girl from her school to go sub-20 in at least the MileSplit era.

Peddie junior Charis Chien (9th in 20:18) and Lawrenceville sophomore Gigi Aitken-Davies (10th in 20:36) rounded out the top 10 finishers.

In the team competition, Lawrenceville won with 46 points. Peddie finished 2nd with 60 points, barely edging Wilberforce by just 3 points. Pennington took 4th with 89 points, just 7 points ahead of Hun. 

Stuart County Day didn’t have a complete team, but their top finisher, junior Claire McLaughlin, took 15th place in a PR of 22:00.

Boys Highlights

Elie Meyer (Peddie) takes the win at the Pennington Cross Country Invitational on October 23, 2025. | @peddiecrosscountry

On his third try, Peddie senior Elie Meyer finally bested all the Lawrenceville boys and earned his first win as a Falcon in a new PR of 16:32.5. It took a PR to get the win, because Lawrenceville junior Arunav Sarkar finished just a few second back in 16:39.4 for 2nd place. Sarkar was followed by three more Big Red boys who went sub-17: Hejyule Bae-Robinson (3rd in 16:50.0), Bastian Bocklage (4th in 16:52.5), and Julius Jordan (6th in 16:59.0).

Breaking up that Lawrenceville pack was Pennington senior Monte Huffman, who finished 5th in a massive PR of 16:55.3. Considering that his prior 5K PR was a 17:35 from Holmdel earlier this month, he certainly deserved this first official sub-17 on a much faster course.

Wilberforce junior Elias Edwards crossed the line in 7th with a time of 17:25.5. Peddie junior Theo Salapatas got to the finish in 17:46.1 in 8th place, just a few seconds ahead of Pennington senior Andrew Hofacker in 17:50.8. Hofacker’s sophomore teammate Christopher Freeland gave Pennington three boys in the top 10 with a massive 58-second PR of 17:55.5 for 10th place. He prevailed in a tight finish that also included Hun senior William Carey (11th in 17:56.5), Wilberforce junior Henry Jepson (12th in 17:57.0), and Lawrenceville junior Spencer Taft (13th in 17:59.8).

Lawrenceville eased to the team victory, racking up only 28 points. Peddie narrowly claimed 2nd place — just as they did on the girls side — by only 5 points over a strong Pennington squad. Wilberforce took 4th place with 82 points, and Hun finished 5th with 118.