Depth helped the Jackson Memorial High School boys track and field team win the NJSIAA Group III indoor track and field championships in February, and it helped the Jaguars claim their second Ocean County track and field team championship in three years on May 8.

The meet was held at Neptune High School, Neptune.

With Adam Stokes at less than 100 percent with a nagging calf injury after his second place finishes in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles and the 110-meter high hurdles, junior Mike Rodgers stepped in for the third leg of the 4x400-meter relay and ran a personal best 51.9 that helped the Jaguars to a fourth-place finish in the final event.

Toms River South was two spots behind the Jaguars, and that finish in the 4x400 enabled Jackson Memorial to vault to the team title by a 64-62 final margin.

“We’ve had guys step in and come through in different events,” said coach Steve Theobald, who had Gilson Cortes and Garrett Derringer run the first two legs and Greg Caldwell run the anchor as the 4x400 relay team clocked a time of 3:30.42.

Caldwell also held true to his No. 1 seed in the 800-meter run, winning going away in 1:59 while two other top seeded teammates also claimed gold — junior Connor Saker with a 158-foot toss in the discus and senior captain Terrance Brown, whose gliding style led to a 53-1 throw in the shot put. Brown was fifth in the discus at 142 feet. Saker was third in the discus at the county meet last year.

Sprinter Tylia Gillon, who led the Jaguars’ girls team to a third-place finish, turned in a command performance with three gold medals in windy conditions that she said “made it tough to run hard.” Gillon was named the Outstanding Runner in the girls meet.

Gillon won the 100-meter dash (12.43) for the third consecutive year, the 200-meter dash in 26.48, and the 400-meter dash in 57.0, times that she looked at almost apologetically because of the weather.

“I definitely think I can do better,” said Gillon. “I am determined to triple [win three events] in the Shore Conference meet [on May 14-15 at Neptune High School] and I am looking forward to qualifying for the [state] Meet of Champions. This was really difficult and made me stronger for the upcoming events.”

Gillon advanced to the NJSIAA Meet of Champions in the 100 and 200 last year. She finished third in the 100 in 12.87 and sixth in the 200 in 24.9 and she anchored the Jaguars’ fourth-place 4x400 relay team that clocked a time of 3:50.54.

Gillon’s bid to return to the Meet of Champions for a third straight year will start with the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV state sectionals next weekend in Hillsborough.

“The 100 is my main focus,” said Gillon. “I know that in the 200 I definitely can do better and I want to get back to the Meet of Champions in that event, too. I am really close to where I want to be. As long as I get a good start and a strong finish in the 100 and let the race come to me, I’ll be OK. That’s true in the 200, too.”

Gillon said she thought her young team “surprisingly did pretty good” at the Ocean County meet, but she said she had a feeling the Jaguars would perform well after they won the county relays a few weeks earlier.

“The younger girls are stepping up,” Gillon said.

Jackson Memorial scored 83 points at the county meet, finishing behind Southern Regional (103) and Toms River North (100).

As for the boys team, it comes off a 4- 3 dual meet season, and Theobald has been pointing the squad to peak performances in the state meets.

“We tend not to go all out in the Shore Conference meet because we want to be ready for the big meets that come after that,” said Theobald, whose team nonetheless won the Shore Conference meet in 2007. “Our main focus is to get ready for the state sectionals.”

“This was a tough week leading up to this meet because some kids were taking Advanced Placement exams and a lot of juniors were taking the SATs, so we saw some kids sparingly over the last two weeks,” said Theobald. “I did not think we would be 100 percent, but I was not surprised to see a lot of the guys do what they are supposed to do.”

Theobald said Stokes will be ready for the upcoming meets. He lost by one onehundredth of a second in the high hurdles to a runner from Manchester and led in the intermediate hurdles going into the final few meters when his calf acted up at the Ocean County meet.

Cortes, another senior co-captain, ran subpar times but still finished third in the 200 and fifth in the 400 at the county meet.

Freshman long-jumper Faysal Forbes was fifth with a best effort 20-11, although he has reached 21-6 this season.