The boy’s and girl’s cross country teams are on the back end of a great season. Both teams are waiting to face South Plainfield next Tuesday (10/12).

Coach Rotella is in his fifth season of coaching the boy’s cross country team, along with being the head ice hockey coach. His favorite thing about coaching is “getting to work with the student athletes”. Coach added that he, “loves being able to coach here at WHS.”

Coach Rotella and the team had high expectations coming into the season. He said “when we started running in the summer, we talked about what we wanted to accomplish. The team spoke of trying to win the division. But that is no easy feat considering the two distract schools will be in our way of that idea as well as Sayreville and South Plainfield, two teams we have not beaten in a few seasons.”

Coach Timinski, girls coach, is currently in his fourth year of coaching cross, also being the head girl’s basketball coach. His favorite thing about coaching is “Watching kids improve. Motivating them to work hard and seeing that hard work rewarded.” He added “I also love getting to know all of the kids on our team. Sports reveal a lot about who they are as people and competitors.”

Timinski preaches to his team ” to work hard every day” and believes his team has done that, since five runners have gotten their personal best times.

Timinski has high praise for the season “so far it’s been a very good season. We had three of our top runners graduate so it’s nice to see other runners step up and not only compete but provide leadership to the team.”

Coach also wanted to give a shout-out to his team saying “Our girl’s cross country team is filled with terrific kids. All different levels of runners but one common thread is they work hard and they are terrific teammates. That starts with our leaders Victoria Gonzalez and Sophia Mercurio.”

To read more about Barrons sports, go to the Perspectives Sports page archive.