Welcome to the webpage for The 26th Annual Cross Country Cherokee Challenge!

This unusual meet, sponsored by Cherokee High School, Nike Sports Equipment, RunningWorks and The Running Company of South Jersey, with its shorter racing distances, class scoring, and unique coed team scoring, provides a great opportunity for runners to begin the competitive season, and we hope you "take the Challenge" this year!

Originally intended to be a "low-key" racing opportunity, over the years it has evolved into a fairly hard-core "sprint" for the top level High School 2 mile XC runners, and the top-level Middle School 2400m XC racers in the region!

Last year, 2022, our 25th Anniversary, the weather was perfect, sunny and relatively cool; the course was dry and firm and the racing was great! There were two new course records -- Junior Peyton Shute of Gateway/Woodbury smoked the 3200m course with a meet record 9:24.49; and Ryan Duffy of Kingsway MS won the boys middle school division with a 7:18.37 over the 2400m course!

More than 100 teams from three states brought over a thousand athletes to race the course! In addition, Tomahawk Timing, using chip-timing, quickly posted the results of each race on-site and on the Internet!

Congratulations to the Boys CC team from the Westfield High School of New Jersey, and to the Girls CC team from Clearview Regional High School of New Jersey, on winning the team championships at the 2022 Cherokee Challenge! It was the second time for the Westfield team and the first for Clearview Regional! GO BLUE DEVILS! GO PIONEERS! Also, congratulations to the combined Girls and Boys squads from Southern Regional High School on winning the Co-Ed Championship!GO RAMA!

For years now, the NJ.MileSplit Network has reported directly from the meet! Robert Kellert, the senior editor, was at Cherokee again in 2022, reporting the action directly from the finish line, and all of his work, including the results, videos, interviews and thousands of pictures from the meet since 2004, can be found at: NJ.MileSplit!

We hope your team "took the Challenge" in 2022 and was part of the best cross country meet in New Jersey; and we look forward to seeing you again at our next Cherokee Challenge!