Westfield Boys Track 2004 Blue Devil Relays

At Saturday’s Blue Devil Relays at Kehler Field in Westfield Blue Devil track coach Jack Martin seemed to be everywhere at once. In a fifteen minute span he could be seen directing relay runners into the proper order for their next handoff, making sure athletes signed in to their event and attending to countless other details that would belie his other
responsibility as director of the event which went off flawlessly for the 16th time.

Unlike almost every other year, his team did not garner any first place finishes in the thirteen track and field events and the team will also not be sending any athletes to Philadelphia for this weekend’s Penn Relays, but Martin is pleased with his teams’ progress just the same.

“This is a young team with a lot of potential ,” said Martin, who has coached track for 30 years and been the head coach at Westfield since 1994. “There were a lot of top teams here. It was a very good test for us.”

The best performance Saturday came in the distance medley, where the foursome of
sophomore Kris Kagan (3:25.9), Brendan Egan (51.5), junior Rob Broadbent (2:05.3) and sophomore Jeff Perrrella (4:29.2) finished four seconds behind state ranked power Old Bridge.

“I was hoping we would win because it was named in honor of Irwin Bernstein-it was run in his honor for the first time ,” said Martin. (Bernstein of Westfield, who died in 2003. was a great runner in the 400 and 800s who competed past the age of 70

Martin considers the middle distance runners the strength of the team. Egan, a two time all Union County soccer player, has a tremendous combination of speed and strength which serves him well in the 400 and 800. Broadbent and Kagan are coming off fine indoor seasons in the 800 and Perrella excels at both the 1600 and 3200 with another sophomore, Jay Hoban adding depth.

Scott Steinberg joined Kagan,Egan and Perrella on the fourth place 4 by 800 team that ran 8:28. In addition to Egan the 400 also features junior Jake Brandman and Jeff Whitney.

The other top performance Saturday was the Pole Vault relay which finished second..
Juniors Mike Gorski and Mike Woods tied the old meet record of 25 ‘6 but were well behind Hunterdon Central, which smashed the record with a prodigious 28 foot performance. Sean Callahan and sophomore Alex Kao give the Blue Devils four impressive pole vaulters.

“Our pole vaulters are our strongest field event and should score in most major
championships this spring. Our triple jumpers are inexperienced but I think we
will surprise later ,” said Martin. Kao, sprinter Roche Landolf and Tyler McCubbin
are the leading triple jumpers. McCubbin is the leading high jumper and Landolf the top long jumper.


Javelin thrower Jeff Pazdro,a junior is the clear leader in the weight events “ He is improving every meet ,” said Martin. Junior Tom White leads the shot put and discus.
The top hurdlers are Josh Dennerlein, McCubbin and Sean Perlman

With underclassmen leading most events there is cause for optimism.
“We need to get experience as the vast majority of our runners are freshmen and
sophomores,” said Martin.

Considerable experience was gained last weekend as the Blue Devils entered a staggering 47 teams in the 13 events. Martin had all the times neatly catalogued in a Word document which probably came off his ubiquitous clipboard.
“It is great to have over 100 kids on the team ,” said Martin.