From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

The Rowan cross country roster has finally been posted on Rowan’s web site – one day before the first race of the season – and it includes four of the Profs’ top five runners from 2026, it includes some notable freshmen and it includes two runners actually named Rowan.

It does not include record-setting Seth Clevenger, the NCAA Division 3 3,000 and and 5,000 champion last indoor season and Division 3 indoor record holder in the mile [3:59.41], 3,000 [7:54.87] and 5,000 [13:32.09]. Clevenger, a Haddonfield graduate, is also No. 3 all-time in the 10,000 at 29:06.90.

After his historic indoor season, Clevenger only raced twice outdoors. It appears that his 14:06.23 at the Penn Relays will wind up as his final race as a Rowan Prof. Clevenger, a transfer from Iowa State, never ran XC for Rowan. His last XC race was the 2025 Nuttycombe Invitational in Madison, Wisc., where he ran a lifetime-best 23:37.9 for 8,000 meters. Clevenger only ran XC in 2022 and 2024 at Iowa State so he does have remaining eligibility.

Of Rowan’s top five finishers at last year’s NJAC XC meet, four are back – senior Colin Patterson of Haddon Township [4^th last year], senior Aidan Brad of Williamstown [20^th], sophomore Dylan Saber of Williamstown [22^nd] and junior Reid Gervasi of Haddonfield [25^th]. Not on the roster is Elijah Whitaker from Glassboro High, who placed 11^th at NJACs last year.

Among Rowan’s top incoming freshmen are Audubon’s Riley Fayer, who was 3^rd at the Group 1 state meet last year at Holmdel; Williamstown’s Dominic Burgio, who was 3^rd at the state Group 4 meet in the 1,600 both indoors and outdoors; Julian Canon from Memorial of West New York, who ran 9:32.56 for 3,200 meters last spring at Cherokee; Highland’s Andrew Dopkin, who ran 15:55 at DREAM Park; Michaelangelo Lepore of Mountain Lakes, 4^th in the state Group 1 XC meet last fall; Ryan Organek of Delaware Military Academy, who ran 9:32.42 last spring; and Matteo Pascucci of League City Clear Springs in Texas, who ran 1:55.86 and 4:17.87 as a high school senior;

Rowan also has two West Coast transfers named Rowan: Rowan Henige from Sequoia High in San Marcos, Calif., and Rowan Horner, from Franklin High in Portland, Ore. Henige ran a 9:29.64 steeplechase for San Jose State last year; Horner ran 15:53 in his last high school XC season, in the fall of 2023.

The Rowan women have their top five underclassmen from last year’s NJAC Championship team back – senior Shannon Stakelback of Toms River East [4^th last year], senior Jezena Aponte of Snyder High in Jersey City [10^th], sophomore Juliana Sieminski from Delsea [12^th], senior Allyson Wernik from Washington Township [14^th] and junior Zoey Dolling from Montgomery [20^th].

The only freshman listed on Rowan’s women’s roster is Kayla Romanoski from West Deptford, who ran 2:14.94 last spring.

The Rowan men and women open the season Friday at the Lehigh Invitational over 6,000 meters on Lehigh’s South Campus. The course is in both Bethlehem and Lower Saucon Township. Lehigh hosted the NCAA Division 1 Championships in 1979, 1983 and 1993.

Elizabeth’s Will Inglis from Moorestown opened his senior season of cross country with a win at the Elizabethtown Blue Jay Alumni Challenge.

Inglis ran 14:00 over 4.5 kilometers (2.8 miles) at the Solar Array Cross Country Course on E’town’s campus. The meet record of 13:31 was set in 2021 by Schalick’s Samuel Gerstenbacher of

Inglis placed 7^th in the Landmark Conference XC Championships last fall in Clark, Union County, then won the 800 at the indoor Landmark meet in Selinsgrove and the 1,500 and steeplechase at the outdoor conference meet in Huntingdon, Pa.

He ran 1:50.82 in a meet at Widener last May, 3^rd-fastest 800 all-time by a Burlington County high school alum.

Inglis is No. 4 in school history at 800 meters, tied for No. 3 in the 1,500 [3:53.42] and No. 4 in the steeplechase [9:25.02]. Indoors he’s No. 4 in the 800 [1:54.54]

While I was going through this I noticed that No. 8 on the school’s all-time 10,000 list is one-time Cinnaminson runner Dave Bresnahan with a 31:38.64 at Bucknell in 2008.

Haddonfield sophomore Bella DeFinis ran 14:12 over two miles to win the season-opening Colonial Conference batch meet at Pennypacker Park in Haddonfield and Cherry Hill.

Haddonfield swept the top four spots, with DeFinis followed by seniors Nora Hastings [14:26], Grace McCool [14:28] and Penelope Mathews [14:35]. Junior Corinne Kelly broke up a Haddonfield sweep, taking 5^th in 15:02.

The Haddonfield boys swept the top five spots, with junior Ian Rodriguez 1^st overall in 11:50, followed by sophomore Lucas Larson [11:51], junior William Krier [11:51], senior Luke Patterson [11:59] and junior Oliver Setchel [12:08].

Gloucester freshman Luke Madrack placed 6^th in his high school XC debut in 12:28.

Simon Bernhardt, a TCNJ sophomore from Shawnee, placed 2^nd in The College of New Jersey’s season-opening Blue-Gold Scrimmage in Ewing.

Bernhardt ran 16:43 on the 5,000-meter Green Lane course, finishing behind only senior Brendan Blythe of Arcadia in Cheltenham Township, who ran 16:38.

Bernhardt did not race outdoors so this was his first race since an indoor meet in Chester in March.

Top freshman in the race was TCNJ’s Ryan McCann from Cedar Creek, who ran 16:55 in his first college race and placed 7^th.

In the women’s race, sophomore Lilla Porter of Clearview was the top South Jersey runner in 4^th place in 12:59 over two miles. Also in the top 10 was junior captain Ella Feehan of Atlantic County Tech and Brigantine, who was 10^th in 13:18.

Another race, another win for Gabriel Moronta.

The 2021 Pleasantville graduate, now competing for the Dominican Republic, continued his smoking hot summer of racing by winning the 400 Wednesday at the International Wieslaw Maniak Memorial at Wieslaw Maniak Municipal Athletic Stadium in Szczecin, Poland.

Moronta ran 45.00 and ran away from the field, beating Maksymilian Szwed of Poland, the European indoor silver medalist, who was 2^nd in 45.24, and Asian indoor champion Ammar Ismail Yahia Ibrahim of Qatar, who was 2^nd in 45.48.

Moronta has won his last four races, including the 400 at the Central Caribbean Championships in Santo Domingo earlier this month. He also won the Dominican Republic Championships in Kingston and the Pan Am Championships in Medellin, Columbia, both in June.

He’s run 45.00 or faster in his last five 400s, including a PR of 46.67 at the Pan Am Championships. That’s 3^rd-fastest in Dominican Republic history and No. 39 in the world this year.

Moronta is represented by Ian Weakly, a four-time Jamaican national 400-meter hurdles champion who ran collegiately at George Mason and raced at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Pleasantville’s Gabriel Moronta continued his hot summer of racing by winning the 400 this weekend at the Felix Sanchez Classic at Pista de Atletismo Felix Sanchez in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Moronta, now competing for the Dominican Republic, won the 400 in 44.70, just 3-100ths of a second off his PR of 44.67 from June in a meet in Medellin, Columbia.

He’s now run sub 44.80 five times this summer, including two 44.70s, a 44.73 and a 44.79 in addition to his 44.67, which is 3^rd on the all-time Dominican Republic list and    56-100ths of a second off the national-record 44.11 set in 2015 by Luguelin Santos in Beijing.

In Santo Domingo, Moronta won easily over former Arizona State All-America Justin Robinson of the U.S., who was 2^nd in 45.08.

Moronta anchored South Florida’s winning 1,600-meter relay team at the 2025 NCAA Championships in Hayward Field in Eugene.

Curtis Thompson will compete in an insanely loaded javelin competition in Lausanne, Switzerland, this weekend.

The top six javelin throwers in the world are entered in Athletissima, the Lausanne Diamond League meet, Saturday at Stade Olympique de la Pontaise.

Thompson, a 2014 Florence graduate and six-time U.S. champion, is ranked 5^th in the world by World Athletics.

Also scheduled to compete are No. 1 Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage of Sri Lanka, a 2025 World Championships finalist; No. 2 Julian Weber of Germany, a two-time European champion; No. 3 Anderson Peters of Grenada – the 2024 Olympic bronze medalist, two-time world champion and Thompson’s college teammate at Mississippi – No. 4 Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago, the 2012 Olympic gold medalist; and No. 6 Neeraj Chopra of India, the 2020 Olympic gold medalist.

On the all-time world list, Peters is ranked 5^th at 305-4, Pathirage is 8^th at 303-10, Weber is 15^th at 200-2, Chopra 26^th at 296-0, Walcott 28^th at 295-9 and Thompson 53^rd with an 287-11.

Thompson, the 2025 World Championships bronze medalist, already has two Diamond League podium finishes this year. He was 3^rd in both Rome and Doha.

The Lausanne javelin is scheduled for 8:22 p.m. local time on Saturday, which is 2:22 p.m. EST.

Track season is finally over, and for those of you Jonesing for something, anything running related, you only have to wait two more weeks.

The TCNJ Blue/Gold Invitational is the earliest cross country meet we found, slated for two weeks from today at the Mike Walker-designed Green Lane Fields XC course in Ewing. A 5:30 p.m. starting time is listed on the TCNJ web site.

Among the schools scheduled to compete this year along with TCNJ are Bard College of Red Hook, N.Y., Bergen Community College of Paramus, Drew University of Madison, East Stroudsburg (Pa.), FDU-Florham of Madison, Holy Family of Northeast Philly and Montclair State (of Montclair, Little Falls and Clifton).

Looking for local runners? We’ve got ’em!

TCNJ has 12 runners from South Jersey on its 2026 roster – eight men and four women.

Top South Jersey returners for TCNJ are sophomore Simon Bernhardt from Shawnee and junior Silas Matteson from Cherokee, who placed 27^th and 29^th in the NJAC Championships in Galloway Township last Nov. 1.

Other South Jersey runners on their roster are sophomore Sean Alemi from Audubon, freshman Vincent Kelly from Gloucester, freshman Ryan McCann from Cedar Creek, freshman Matthew McDevitt from Egg Harbor Township, freshman Will Nelson from Cherry Hill East and senior Tyler Smith from Paul VI.

South Jersey women on TCNJ’s roster include juniors Ella Feehan of Atlantic County Tech and Anna Marino from Cinnaminson, sophomore Lilla Porter of Clearview and junior Taylor Rooney of Egg Harbor Township. Feehan and Rooney placed 6^th and 7^th in the steeplechase at the NJAC Championships this past spring.

Most of the other schools scheduled to race in Ewing haven’t posted their 2026 rosters, but one of East Stroudsburg’s top runners has been Payton Falkenstein from Burlington Township, who is presumably a senior this fall. Falkenstein was runner-up last spring in the 10,000 at the PSAC Championships in Slippery Rock, 4^th in the PSAC cross country meet at Edinboro and 5^th at the NCAA Division 2 Atlantic Region meet in Lock Haven.

Holy Family hasn’t posted a roster but Olivia Moyer of Cinnaminson and Andrae Johnson of Oakcrest were both underclassmen last year, and Moyer would be a sophomore now and Johnson a senior. Johnson was 4^thin the 800 at the Central Atlantic Athletic Conference meet in Lakewood.

Fourteen days to go and we’ll have racing in Ewing Township!

David Brown, the NCAA Division 3 high jump champ this spring as a Rowan freshman, recorded the 2^nd-best jump of his life Saturday and placed 9^th at the World Under-20 Championships in Eugene.

Brown cleared 7-1 ½ on his 3^rd attempt before missing three tries 7-3, which would have been a PR and No. 3 in Division 3 history. Brown’s PR is 7-2 ¼ from a meet in February at the Ott Center.

With the 7-1 ½ clearance, Brown moved up from tied for No. 31 to tied for 16^th on the all-time Division 3 outdoor performance list.

So this was an outdoor PR, breaking his previous mark of 7-0 ½ from his NCAA D-3 win in May in La Crosse, Wisc.

Brown, competing for Jamaica, is No. 2 in Rowan history outdoors, behind only Eastern graduate Jeffrey Jon Tucker, who cleared 7-2 ¼ at the 2018 Penn Relays. He attended Edison High School in Middlesex County.

Brown opened with a miss at 6-9 before getting over the bar on his second attempt. He was clean at 6-11 1/2 before his clutch 3rd-attempt clearance at 7-1 1/2.

Natalie Dumas is the first South Jersey athlete to win a gold medal at the Under-20 World Championships in 40 years.

Dumas won gold when the U.S. mixed 1,600-meter relay team set a world Under-20 record of 3:15.31 Wednesday after Dumas split 52.35 on the 2^nd leg in the semifinals earlier Wednesday at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.

I spent a chunk of time Thursday looking through all-time World Under-20 results going back to the first meet in 1986 in Athens, Greece, and only found one other champion and two other medalists from South Jersey in a meet that was until recently known as World Junior Championships.

In 1986 in Athens, Kingsway’s Denise Liles ran the 3^rd leg on the U.S. 400-meter relay team, which won the final in 43.78.

“Winning that gold medal in Athens is something I’ll always remember, because it was the first time the (World Under-20) Games were held,” Liles said in an interview P.J. Wajda at my old paper, the Gloucester County Times, after she returned home to Woolwich Township.

“We will be known as the first winners of the relay, which I think is a good accomplishment. Going into the meet, we were a little nervous because we heard that the team from Nigeria was supposed to be good. But by the time the race started, we were relaxed and we ran our race. As it turned out, Nigeria wasn’t even a factor.”

The only other South Jersey medalist at World Under-20 that I found was Braheme Days Jr. of Bridgeton, who placed 3^rd in the shot put with a 65-7 ¾ at the 2014 meet, also at Hayward Field in Eugene.

“I showed up at the meet and felt good,” Days told the Gloucester County Times. “We worked really hard this year and it’s nice to get the medal. The biggest thing I can take from it is to work hard, show up and compete as good as I can and maybe next time I can win the gold or silver.”

Dumas will race in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles semifinals on Saturday.