By: Paul Schwartz – Record Sports Department
CLIFTON — If Rich Miller ever retires as the Cresskill boys track coach, the name Wellington Ventura will be at or near the top of his list of great Cougar athletes.
But Miller, whose team captured its first sectional title since 1998 Saturday was clear that even though the Connecticut-bound senior finished off one of the all-time great sectional meets with dominating wins in the 200 and long jump Saturday to add to his 100 and 400 wins Friday, the Cougars North 1, Group 1 title wasn’t only about his superstar.
“Wellington Ventura is going to go down as of the best athletes we’ve ever had in Cresskill, but he didn’t win the meet for us, he gave us the opportunity to win the meet,” said Miller, who is finishing his 50th year of coaching at Cresskill and 38th as the head coach.
“We have a great team and we covered nearly event event,” said Miller, whose team held off Saddle Brook, 88-75, scoring in 13 of the 18 events.”Each one of the guys on the team went after it and that’s why we’re sectional champions, even those who didn’t score.”
Like Jae Won Cho, who placed fifth in the 100 hurdles and fourth in the intermediate hurdles, and who took up the sport because his mother had been a hurdle champion in her native Korea. Cho also ran on the winning 4-x-100 and third place 4-x-400 relays.
Or George Sikoryak, the senior basketball player, who transferred back from Bergen Catholic after his sophomore year and had never even tried track and field until teammate Evan Milionis finally convinced him to join for his final season. Sikoryak was 6th in the 200 and 400, and had legs on both short relays as well.
Or Dan Castano, who was second in the triple jump and sixth in the long jump, the former with a nearly two foot PR.
Or Milionis, the prime recruiter for the team, who convinced Ventura and Sikoryak and several others to join the Cougars track team over the years even though his preferred sport is soccer. Milionis, unfortunately suffered a hip injury that kept him out most of the season, and forced him out of the 110 hurdles final after he had run a personal best for fourth in the trials.
“These kids are what team is about, and why it’s always such a pleasure to coach them,” said Miller.
