Nick Mirabelli, little brother of 2013 Meet of Champion javelin winner Chris Mirabelli, moved into the No. 1 spot in New Jersey Saturday with a personal-best 198-0 at the Moorestown Invitational.

Mirabelli shattered his personal-best by more than 20 feet. His previous PR was a 176-11, good for third at last year’s state Group 4 meet, where he finished behind teammate Robert Marks (183-10) and Michael Sangimino of South Brunswick (183-7).

Chris Mirabelli, now a sophomore at Rutgers, threw for Holy Cross.

R.V. has a rich history of javelin throwers, going back to Drew Forbes, who threw 221-7 with the old javelin in 1978, and Jason Cowden, who won the 1999 Meet of Champions.

Mirabelli now joins his older brother on the all-time South Jersey list, which includes only marks made with the new javelin that’s been in use since 2002. Chris is No. 2 behind long-time rival Curtis Thompson, and Nick is already up to No. 6. Here’s the current 190-foot club:

224-10 … Curtis Thompson (Florence), 2014
216- 6 … Chris Mirabelli (Holy Cross), 2014
203- 6 … Stephen Benigno (Cherry Hill East), 2014
201- 0 … Sean Biehn (Burlington City), 2006
200- 8 … Cade Antonucci (Holy Spirit), 2016
198-0 … Nick Mirabelli (Rancocas Valley), 2017
196-9 … Terrance Smith (Oakcrest), 2006
192- 6 … Matt Rafferty (Northern Burlington), 2012
192- 6 … Christopher Reider (Eastern), 2010
192- 3 … Shane McDevitt (Cinnaminson), 2014
191-6 … Robert Marks (Rancocas Valley), 2016
191- 5 … Andrew Pierce (Cumberland Reg.), 2009
190- 0 … Andrew Forbes (Williamstown), 2011

Interesting that seven of the top 11 are from Burlington County, with two from Camden County and two from Atlantic County.

State-wide, 24 throwers have surpassed 200 feet since the new implement went into effect 15 years ago. And Mirabelli is within two feet of becoming No. 25.

Team-wise, mighty Rancocas Valley easily won the team title, nearly doubling up second-place Toms River, 124-63.

 

 

Holy Spirit senior Cade Antonucci came within seven inches of the 60-foot barrier Saturday with a personal-best 59-5 1/2 heave at the Bridgeton Relays Saturday.

Antonucci’s previous outdoor PR was a 56-11 throw to win the South Jersey Invitational last year. It’s No. 3 in Atlantic County history, behind only Kofi Yamoah of Egg Harbor Township [61-4 in 2013] and Dontaye Rivera of Pleasantville [60-3 in 2012].

He had an overall PR of 57-9 from indoor Easterns in March at the Armory.

Antonucci, a rare three-way thrower, also has PRs of 206-10 in the javelin and 159-4 in the discus.

At Bridgeton, he threw 196-8 in the javelin but fouled out of the discus without a legal mark. His 196-8 is No. 2 in New Jersey this year behind a 198-0 thrown by Rancocas Valley junior Nick Mirabelli on Saturday.

Ace track correspondent Mike McGarry of the Atlantic City Press notes that Antonucci’s throw broke the Holy Spirit school record of 58-0 set in 1981 by Steve Hanson.

Antonucci’s mark is No. 1 this year in New Jersey. Not bad considering Antonucci is coming off a small tear in his rotator cuff that cost him most of the indoor season.

McGarry has more on that here.

 

Until last weekend, Hunter Daly’s high jump PR was 6-2. He’s now added four inches to it in eight days and shares the New Jersey lead at 6-6.

Daly, a Florence senior, cleared 6-6 at the Moorestown Invitational Saturday a week after setting a PR of 6-4 at the Don Danser Relays a few miles away in Maple Shade.

According to the NJ Milesplit database, Daly now shares the New Jersey lead with Stephen Saklinski of Freehold Township, who has cleared 6-6 twice this year, including Saturday at the Metuchen Relays.

But Staklinski has a PR of 6-8 1/4, is defending state Group 4 champ and was a Meet of Champions medalist a year ago.

Daly had a PR of 6-2 until a few days ago, has  never won a county, conference or sectional title and no-heighted at Meet of Champs a year ago.

This year is clearly different. Daly broke the Florence record of 6-4, set in 1996 by Shane Gainer and became the first South Jersey Group 1 jumper to clear 6-6 since Jared Roberts of Woodbury at states in 2010. The last Group 1 jumpers from South Jersey to do better than 6-6 came in 2007, when Anthony Butler of Salem and Ken Wise of Haddon Township both cleared 6-8.

Crazy but Daly’s PR might not be the most impressive one by a Florence jumper on Saturday.

Teammate LaDarius McNeil cleared 6-3 after having no known form in the event other than a 5-6 clearance at the Don Danser Relays last weekend.

McNeil many have attempted the high jump in a dual meet last year, but he only competed in the long jump, triple jump and 200-meter dash as a junior last year.

So that’s an apparent nine-inch PR and one Group 1 school with a 6-6 high jumper and a 6-3 high jumper.

 

Michael also PR’d Saturday in the long jump, going 20-2 1/2. His previous long jump PR was 19-8 1/2 when he was second at last year’s BCSL Freedom Division meet at Northern Burlington.

Widener sophomore Allison Reuter went into the Danny Curran Invitational at her home track in Chester with a lifetime hammer throw PR of 127-2.

By the time she was done, she had earned a national top-20 ranking and PR’d by more than 30 feet!

Reuter, a 2015 Clayton High School graduate, threw 158-6 to place second and increase her hammer PR by 31 feet, four inches.

Her mark is No. 18 in NCAA Division 3 and No. 3 among sophomores.

Reuter’s mark is less than 10 feet off the Widener school record of 168-4, set in 2015 by Rachel Heisler.

According to her Track and Field Reporting System results, Reuter competed in the hammer in four meets as a freshman last year, with her best throws ranging from 104-5 to the 127-2.

Reuter focused on the discus at Clayton, where she won a South Jersey Group 1 sectional title as a junior and placed second to Palmyra’s Tamara Carmichael at Group 1 states as a senior with a PR of 123-10.

 

Opening day of track season in New Jersey is typically cold, windy, raw and rainy, and so it was again this year. Some meets were cancelled, other meets were postponed, others ran on a limited schedule.

And at Buena, the Egg Harbor sprinters opened the season with an 800-meter relay performance that belied the conditions.

The quartet of Alex Dessoye, Shaquille Boyd, Hunter Barber and Amir Brock ran 1:31.21 in the large-school race at the Jim Camburn Relays at Buena.

EHT won the race by 30 meters over St. Augustine, which placed second in 1:34.59.

The Eagles’ time is No. 1 this year in New Jersey, which means it was faster than anybody else ran state-wide on opening weekend.

That 1:31.21 is actually faster than EHT ran all last year. Their best time last year was a 1:31.62 last May at the South Jersey Relays.

The Eagles ran 1:28.96 in 2015, fifth-fastest in the state, when they placed 13th at nationals. That stands as the school record.

So their time unchallenged in the cold and wind at Buena on the first weekend of the season was only 2.25 seconds slower than their time at nationals two years ago. That’s about half a second per leg. Which means in two months, watch out – EHT is going to be flying.

Egg Harbor also won the 400-meter relay in 44.69, with Dessoye, Boyd, Devon Covington and Brock. That time is No. 3 in the state early on. The Eagles also won the shuttle hurdles in 1:08.88 with Joseph Del Conte, Boyde, Vernon Swain and Covington.

Rutgers junior Chris Mirabelli got his 2017 season off to a terrific start with a javelin PR at the University of South Florida Invitational in Tampa.

Mirabelli, a Lumberton native and Holy Cross graduate, threw 241-7 on his final attempt of the day, breaking his PR of 240-3 1/2, set last May when he won the Big 10 Championships in Lincoln, Neb.

Mirabelli also had a throw of 238-2 1/2 at South Florida, giving him two of his four-longest career throws in his first meet of the spring. He also had a 238-10 at the Big East meet.

Last year, Mirabelli competed in the NCAA Championships and U.S. Olympic Trials. His 241-7 is third-best in NCAA Division 1 so far this spring, behind only Matti Mortimore of North Dakota State (253-1) and Michael Shuey of Penn State (247-2).

Mirabelli is also ranked No. 3 among all U.S. men, behind Shuey and Cyrus Hostetler (243-7). (Mortimore is British.)

Curtis Thompson of Mississippi State, Mirabelli’s rival since their days in the BCSL Patriot Division, is ranked No. 5 in Division 1 with a 238-0 in a meet in Jacksonville, Fla. Thompson has a PR of 271-11 from his second-place finish at the Olympic Trials.

Mirabelli was scheduled to throw this weekend in the Colonial Relays in Williamsburg, Va., but the javelin was cancelled due to bad weather.

Mirabelli is only about three feet off the Rutgers school record of 244-10 set 21 years ago by Chris Sagnella in a meet on Rutgers’ campus in Piscataway.

Mirabelli’s high school PR was 216-6 set at the 2014 South Jersey Invitational at Buena, where he beat Thompson by one inch. Thompson’s high school PR was 224-10 at the 2014 Meet of Champions in South Plainfield, where he and Mirabelli finished 1-2.