Terry Iavarone knows that the opportunity that the Bloomfield boys track & field team had at last weekend’s Essex County Championships isn’t one that comes along very often with the depth and talent in the meet every year
With an elusive county title within reach, the Bengals took full advantage of the moment and returned to Bloomfield as champions.
Sparked by four individual gold medals and several clutch performances throughout the roster, Bloomfield won just its second Essex County tite in program history and first since 2001 with a team score of 81 points. The Bengals distanced itself from runners-up Seton Hall Prep (64.75) and Columbia (64) in the meet, held May 9 and 12 at Schools Stadium in Newark.
“The kids were over the moon,” said Iavarone. “I have never envisioned that we would get a chance to win a county championship considering you have these huge schools that are track powerhouses.
“Bloomfield has had a track program for over 100 years. You go back to Essex County track, there’s results for almost 100 years. This is something that may never happen again or at least when I’m coaching or anybody else on the staff is coaching. So this is a special one.”
After the first day of the championships, Bloomfield felt it was in position to do what Iavarone had previously thought was unobtainable.
“We knew that if everyone fired on all cylinders (the second day), we had a serious shot of winning the county championship after day one,” Iavarone said. “We knew if your hurdlers came through in the 110 and our shot put came through that we would need one big performance that would put us over the top.”
For Bloomfield, that unexpected performance came in the Pole Vault when senior Nicholas Obiedzinski won the event with a personal best of 12-6.
In total, the Bengals had four first place finishes with Obiedzinski, Jeremy Tejada (110 Meter Hurdles), Alexander Travers (400 Meter Hurdles) and Joelle Urdanivia (Discus) all taking gold in their respective events.
Tejada, Jabari Murray and Victor Carthell finished one, two, three in the 110 Meter Hurdles, while Urdanivia and Ukoha Kalu took first and second in the Discus. Bloomfield’s boys individually took home 12 medals, proof of the depth needed to win a county title.
On the girls side, Bloomfield’s star sophomore Alana Dennis won gold in the 100 Meter Hurdles and silver in the 200 Meter Dash to lead a Bengals team that finished sixth in the team standings. Nutley, which finished 14th, was led by Meya Ranges’ second place finish in the 3200 Meter Run.
Nutley took 14th place in the boys team standings with Marcus Durham’s third place finish in the Triple Jump leading the way.
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Jason Bernstein | Observer Sports Writer
Jason Bernstein joined The Observer as its sports writer in March 2022, following the retirement of Jim Hague. He has a wealth of sports-writing experience, including for NJ Advance Media (nj.com, The Jersey Journal, The Star-Ledger.)