This 2025 fall season, the girls’ cross country team introduced new head coach Colin Heminway. Previous to his experience here at CHS, Heminway coached boys JV cross country during his first teaching job at Rancocas Valley Regional High School.
When asked about his goals as a coach, Heminway described how he wants this team to be a competitive program in not only Burlington County, but in all of New Jersey.
“I want other schools to worry about running against us. I want to be known as a school that works hard. I want to be known as a program that cares about winning, cares about competing, is goal-oriented, and focused on those types of things,” Heminway said.
In order to meet those goals, Heminway initiated workouts to build endurance for the team’s long-distance runs. He also had the girls simulate race experiences during practice so they could learn to manage their energy and pace.
Sophomore member Jamia Massenburg described how Heminway’s coaching approaches have helped her prepare for races, such as the NJSIAA Sectionals, where she finished with a time of 25:33.22.
“…we have done different types of workouts and different strategies going into, like, meets and stuff,” Massenburg said.
As the lone senior on the girls’ cross country team, senior Jenna Kirstein acknowledged the positive impact Heminway has had on the team, talking about his encouragement for the girls to continue working hard. Kirstein, who ran a PR of 23:05.24 this season, mentioned the difficulty of having a limited number of girls.
“I don’t think he [Heminway] has the freedom to completely coach the way he wants to because we only have six girls, so it’s a little difficult implementing certain things,” Kirstein said.
Kirstein, this season’s senior captain, explained the impact of not placing as high compared to past years because they had so few girls; of the six members this season, none were freshmen, but all had veteran experience.
“The familiarity and the experience thing is something that you can’t teach,” Heminway said, “and that just makes coaching a lot easier, and then it makes teams a lot better when there are people there that know what they’re doing.”
Heminway isn’t concerned with having no underclassmen this year, but worries for future seasons.
“But yeah, being concerned that we don’t have a lot of young people on the team is – I’m not thinking about this year,” Heminway said, ”I’m thinking three years down the line, where we’re going to be.”
The coach added that a significant challenge this year has been maintaining health throughout the season.
“I believe every girl on our roster has been either dealing with an injury or just finished dealing with an injury, ” Heminway said.
Because of the limited number of girls on the team, they were able to easily bond and create a close-knit community, but Kirstein said she hopes for more members to join next year to experience everything cross country has to offer.
“It’s such a huge part of my life, and I feel like I could totally convince people to be able to do it…I consider running as something that’s a lot bigger than just the sport, and the running community is very open, in my opinion. Running is so much as mental as it is physical. With consistency, anybody can get good at running.”
The girls finished their season last Saturday, placing fourth in their division overall.
