2005 Penn Relays (Perrella)

Nobody saw it coming. Not the coach or the runner but with a lap to go in the 3,000 meter championship at the prestigious Penn Relays there was Westfield junior Jeffrey Perrella with a chance to win a race against the top high school runners in the country. Although victory eluded Perrella, his third place finish was astounding as was his time of 8:33.50, which smashed the Westfield school record formerly held by Blue Devil great Cliff Sheehan and the Union County record by Anthony DeBenedictis of Roselle Park.

“If I said I saw it coming, I would not be completely honest,” said veteran coach Jack Martin.
“ Jeff has been running great this spring. I thought a good time would have been 8:40. The best part is that if Jeff had more experience, he would have won the race.”

Perrella went into the race as the 22nd seeded of the 24 runners but went for the lead right away.

“I think everyone was afraid to take the lead at such a big race. I was nervous and scared, but one race is no different than any other,” said Perrella.

“I took it out at the speed I wanted to run through the whole thing and everyone else was just kind of scared.”

While pleasantly surprised with his performance, Perrella had been well prepared by Martin, who has coached runners like Matt Elmuccio, Andy Jacob and Sheehan to big race successes in the past. Only last fall, Perrella had his best performance in the biggest race f the fall, the Meet of Champions, where his sixth place finish vaulted him to the all state cross country team.

“It has a lot to do with training. Since I qualified for Penn, I
have been preparing myself so I would be able to run fast, and the
same thing with the Meet Of Champions,” said Perrella who was effusive in his praise of his veteran coach.

“Martin has us work so that we peak during those races and turn in our top performances,” said Perrella.
“He knows what the athletes need to do to run fast and he gets them to do it.”

In spite of everything the time was shocking and puts Perrella in rarified distance running air.

“I have been waiting to go under 9:20 since the beginning of winter track. Things just never went right for me over the winter and I turned in poor performance after poor performance. I have been training hard and smart and now, finally, things are starting to look normal again. I have my form back and I have built up my finishing speed,’ added Perrella.

“It has been a goal of mine to run a 9:09 3200 meter and a 9:13 2
mile, the school records. I know now that they are well within my
reach and I hope to shatter them both before the season ends..”

There were tow other notable performances by Blue Devil performers.

Despite the horrible, rainy conditions, Mike Woods jumped a personal best 14' 7" to finish in a tie for fifth place.

The Girl’s 3200-meter relay team missed its goal of making it to the finals but turned in a strong 9:34.7 performance..
Annie Onishi split 2:23.2 to lead off, and was followed by Miriam Backer-Cohen in a personal best of 2:26.4, .Meg Driscoll in her fastest time of the year 2:26.6.and Emily MacNeil anchored with a 2:17.9.
In their ninth appearance in the 4 x 800 in the last 11 years, it was the third fastest performance in Westfield history.
The 4 by 400 team ran 4:14.4, for 4th place in their heat,.