The NJSIAA's Meet of Champions has been held for 49 years in cross country. Christian Brothers Academy owns more than half of those championships.

CBA Cross Country won their 25th NJSIAA All-Groups title with a dominant effort on November 12 at Holmdel Park. The Colts won by 54 points over second place Union Catholic, placing all five scorers in the top 23 of the individual race and top 14 of the team competition.

Senior Nick Sullivan led the way for CBA, finishing in fifth, while sophomore Joe Barrett was seventh. Junior Jack Falkowski (15th), junior Connor Clifford (20th), and senior Lucas Ward (23rd) rounded out CBA's winning team.

The Colts averaged a 16:07 pace, which was 21 seconds better than the next nearest average.

"The purpose of all the hard training we do, and even the earlier races we run, is to get us ready for this time of the season, when the rankings and potential have to turn into actual results," Sullivan said. "We started our season off strong but always knew that what laid a couple months ahead was the most important, so we've kept that same goal and consistent, positive attitude all season."

The victory at the Meet of Champions came one week after CBA won the 31st state championship in team history, also held at the friendly confines of Holmdel Park.

Barrett was the individual winner of the Non-Public A race, with Sullivan in third place. All seven of CBA's runners were in the top 13 of the state title race. Barrett's 15:43 time is now CBA's all-time sophomore record at Holmdel Park.

Christian Brothers won the state title by 31 points over Union Catholic.

"A big motivation for us was coming up short in both these meets last year, which we wanted really bad," Sullivan said. "Though we were upset with the final results, we learned a lot from it and it just made us work that much harder and focus that much more."

The Colts are not finished just yet, as they will now look forward to the Nike Cross Regionals on November 26 as they look to qualify for the Nike Nationals.