WEST CALDWELL – James Caldwell High School’s boys and girls track teams showed they are competitive by each finishing in the top five in the small schools team standings at the inaugural East Brunswick Invitational on Saturday, April 16, in Middlesex County. The EBI is the brainchild of Jeff Sundberg, a member of the JCHS Class of 2001 who was a standout in both swimming and track for the Chiefs and who is a swim and track coach at EBHS. On the boys side, River Dell finished first in the small schools (Groups 1 and 2) category by totaling an impressive 125 points, while Carteret was second with 68, followed by Spotswood with 48, JCHS and Rutherford with 45 each and Roselle with sixth place with forty, while, on the distaff side, it was River Dell taking the title with an overwhelming 153 points, followed by Spotswood with 68, JCHS with 41, Roselle with 39, Rutherford with 38 and Carteret in sixth place with 36 points. Among the highlights for the Chiefs were the program’s first team pole vault championship of any kind, with junior Colin Dromgoole clearing a personal best (PB) height of 12 feet and sophomore Tom Rodgers, who was a last minute sub, recording a PB effort of nine feet. “That was great just great,” said Dromgoole. “Tom (Rodgers) is not my normal partner and pole vault is not something he always competes in, so to end up in first place was not something we really expected or even thought was possible. “I don’t think I’ve ever cleared more than 11-6, even in practice and I don’t think Tom has gone more than eight or eight-six.” Dromgoole (139-08) also combined with senior Leo Chiaet (119-11, PB) and sophomore Ken Axe (102-5) to finish second in the javelin hurl, while the shot put trio of senior Justin Jackson (41-02.5, PB), Dromgoole (34-6.5) and Chiaet (31-5.25) also snared silver. Among the Lady Chiefs top performances were a second place showing in the shuttle hurdles, where the foursome of sophomore Antonia Bustamonte, senior Claire Murphy and juniors Francesca Sciacca and Roxanne Wilcox came in second at 1:14.16 and third place medals went to the 800-meter sprint medley quartet of senior Ally Brown, ninth-grader Robin Collura, 10th-grader Emily Ibarra and Murphy (2:04.67) and the 4 x 200-meter relay squad of Brown, Collura, Ibarra and Wilcox, a unit which totaled a time of 1:59.48. “It was nice to finally get out on the track and have a great day and to do this during a season in which we don’t even have a home track (due to construction at Bonnel Field) is very, very encouraging,” said JCHS head coach Joe Collura, a member of the Caldwell High Class of 1986. This is Collura’s fifth year as the program’s overall main mentor, after two decades as the boys team’s coordinator.