Sincere Rhea matched his season-best time in the high hurdles Thursday, qualifying comfortably for the finals of the 60-meter hurdles at the Big Ten Championships.

Rhea ran 7.88 – the fourth time in his college career he’s run exactly 7.88 – and matched the third-fastest time going into Saturday’s final.

Josh Braverman of Iowa won the first of three hears in 7.85 and Rhea, a Penn State sophomore, was just behind with his 7.88. Five hurdlers ran between 7.85 and 7.88. The winner of each heat plus the next six-fastest hurdlers qualified for the final. The cutoff was 7.98.

Rhea, a St. Augustine graduate and native of Maurice River Township in Cumberland County, ran 7.88 at the Nittany Lion Opener in January, and also at the Penn State Invitational, also last month. He also ran 7.88 last year at the Tiger Paw Invitational at Clemson.

His PR is 7.76 from the trials of last year’s Big Ten Championships at SPIRE. He went on to place third in 7.82.

This this year’s final is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. Saturday.

Iowa sophomore Tionna Tobias ran within 8-100ths of a second off her hurdles PR in the trials of the 60-meter hurdles Thursday at the ACC Championships. 

Tobias, a Winslow graduate, ran 8.53, finishing second in her qualifying race and posting the 5th-fastest time among 24 entrants. The winner of each heat and the next six-fastest times advanced to Saturday’s final. Tobias was the 5th-fastest qualifier.

The meet is being held at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, outside Cleveland.

Tobias has a high hurdles PR of 8.45 from the Hawkeye B1G Invitational earlier this month on the same track. That’s No. 8 in school history.

Tobias was a multiple state champion in a variety of events at Winslow and a Meet of Champions medalist in the hurdles, long jump and high jump.

She also long jumped Thursday, recording a leap of 18-3 on her third and final attempt and placing 13th overall.

The hurdles final is scheduled for 4:45 p.m. on Saturday.

Paul VI graduate Kambi Walker, a Louisville freshman, matched her college high jump PR of 5-5 Thursday in her first ACC Track Championships.

Walker cleared the opening height of 5-3 on her first attempt and 5-5 on her third attempt. She went out at 5-7. This was Walker’s third straight meet with a 5-5 clearance.

Walker, a Florence native, was the state Parochial A champ last winter. She cleared a PR of 5-7 at the 2019 New Balance Nationals at the Armory.

The meet is being held this weekend at Clemson.

Junior Ravin Hood broke the Rancocas Valley indoor shot put record this week, bombing a 38-2 1/2 in a meet with Northern Burlington and Cherry Hill East at the Bubble.

That’s No. 3 in the state so far during this indoor season.

Hood has an outdoor PR of 39-1 1/4, which she hit three times when she won the freshman shot put at New Balance Nationals at North Carolina A&T in June of 2019, her last outdoor meet. 

Her previous indoor PR and the former RV record was 37-9 1/2, which she threw in a meet at Cherokee in the winter of 2019. The R.V. outdoor and overall school record is 39-3, set by Danielle Steff at the 2016 BCSL Meet at Northern Burlington.

Hood underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus in her knee and missed the 2020 indoor season. Then she didn’t compete outdoors because COVID erased the entire season. She’s competed in two meets at Toms River this winter, her first competition in 19 months.

Hood’s mark is No. 3 in the state in the early portion of the indoor season, behind Jada Mia Puryear of Union Catholic (39-2) and Mendham’s Melissa Aymil (38-5 1/4).

Hood’s best event is probably the discus. She was 3rd at states as a freshman and then threw 130-6 at the Meet of Champions, No. 35 in South Jersey history and a South Jersey freshman record.

Delsea graduate Josh Awotunde threw within two inches of his shot put PR Sunday and recorded in an Olympic qualifyer.

Awotunde placed 3rd in the American Track League event at the Randall Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark., with a throw of 69-9 1/2.

Awotunde surpassed the qualifying standard for the Tokyo Olympics, now re-scheduled for this fall. The standard is 69-2 1/2. That means if Awotunde finishes in the top three at the Olympic Trials he’ll make the U.S. Olympic team. If he doesn’t finish in the top three but either one or two of the top three don’t hit the standard, he could still go if his mark is among the top among Americans outside the top three at the Trials. The qualifying window closes June 29.

Awotunde’s mark ranks him 9th in the world, according to the IAAF’s 2021 international list  and 7th among Americans. 

World indoor record holder Ryan Crouser won the competition with a throw of 71-11 1/2 and Payton Otterdahl was second at 70-2 1/2.

Awotunde had six throws over 66-5 and averaged 67-11 3/4 in his series. He opened at 66-5 3/4 and 66-7 1/4, then surpassed 67 feet twice with 67-11 1/2 and 67-8 1/4 before closing with two bombs of 69-6 3/4 and 69-9 1/2.

Awotunde set his indoor PR of 69-11 3/4 in College Station in February of 2018. That’s No. 27 all-time on the U.S. list. He’s thrown 69-3 3/4 outdoors in L.A. in April of 2019. That’s No. 41 all-time U.S. outdoors. He’s also thrown 191-11 in the discus

At Delsea, Awotunde was Meet of Champions champ in the shot and runner-up in the disc in 2013. At South Carolina, he was a four-time All-America in the shot and discus.

Lumberton native Greg Foster, a junior at the Lawrenceville School, leaped a personal-best 21-8 3/4 in the long jump last week at the High Intensity Track Jump Series meet No. 4.

The jumps-only meet was held at High Intensity Track in Fairfield, Essex County.

It looks like Foster’s previous high school PR was 20-11 from the Mid-Atlantic Prep League Championships at Lavino Fieldhouse in Lawrenceville last February.

This was Foster’s first meet since Easterns at the Armory a year ago this week, where he competed in the hurdles and long jump. 

Foster, who has never run outdoor track for Lawrenceville according to the MileSplit database, competed in the High Intensity Track event representing Camden Track Club.

Foster, a former age-group national champion high hurdler, is the son of Shawnee graduate Greg Foster, who was an All-America horizontal jumper at Stockton University and competed in the 1988 Olympic Trials in the triple jump. 

Marielle Hall recorded an Olympic qualifier in the 10,000-meter run Saturday night in a loaded race in California.

Hall, a Mount Laurel native and Haddonfield graduate, ran 31:21.78, just over three seconds below the Olympic standard of 31:25, in a time trial held at JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano. 

It was her first track 10,000 in nearly two years.

Hall was out in 73.6 and 4:59 through 1,600 meters, 10:02 for 3,200 meters and 15:02 for 4,800 meters. She came through the 5K in 15:38.

She was still in the lead group with Elise Cranny, Karissa Schweizer, Eilish McColgan and Emily Infield through 8,000 meters, which the entire group came through between 24:57 and 24:58, or right at 75 seconds per lap.

At that point, with five laps to go, she knew she only had to average 77.4 per lap to nail her Tokyo qualifier, so there was no reason to keep hammering 74s and risk tying up. This wasn’t a race for place, it was a time trial, so she closed in 77.4, 77.3 and then 77.0, 76.4 and 75.4, finishing safely under the standard.

Hall was one of four American women who ran under the standard. Cranny won in 30:47.42 and Schweizer was second in 30:47.99. Infield (31:08.57) also ran sub-31:25. Scotland’s McColgan placed 3rd in 30:58.94.

The top five times in the race are the top five times in the world this year, according to the IAAF 2021 outdoor performance list. 

Cranny and Schweizer moved into the No. 3 and No. 4 spots on the all-time U.S. list, behind American record holder Molly Huddle (30:13.17 when she was 6th at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro) and former U.S. record holder Shalane Flanagan (30:22.22 when she was second in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing).

By running below the Olympic standard, Hall guarantees herself a spot on the U.S. Olympic team if there is a summer Olympics in Tokyo with a top-three finish in the Olympic Trials. She can also make the team if either the 2nd- or 3rd-place finishers in the Trials don’t meet the qualifying standard. Then the U.S. field is filled by the next-fastest qualifiers.

Hall placed 3rd in the 2016 Trials in Eugene in 31:54.77 and 33rd in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August of 2016 with 32:39.32.

Hall ran her PR of 31:05.71 when she placed 8th at the IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, in September of 2018. That was her last track 10,000.

Hall, 29, has tremendous range, from 2:07.25 for 800 meters while running for Texas in 2011 to 4:10.77 for 1,500 meters last summer to 8:48.72 for 3,000 last summer and 15:02.27 for 5,000 in 2019. She’s run 48:52 on the roads for 15K.

On the all-time U.S. performance lists, Hall ranks No. 23 for 5,000 meters and No. 8 in the 10,000.

In his first competition since winning the Meet of Champions a year ago, Highland senior Floyd Whitaker leaped 22-0 1/4 in a tri-meet with Timber Creek and Delsea Saturday and Timber Creek junior Chace Pearson took second with a big PR of 21-6.

Whitaker won Meet of Champions titles last March in the long jump at 23-5 1/2 and the triple jump at 46-3 1/4. The 23-5 1/2 is a PR. He has a triple jump PR of 46-10 3/4 from winning Easterns. He hasn’t lost a horizontal jump since the 2019 outdoor season.

Whitaker’s 23-5 1/2 is No. 10 in South Jersey history and was No. 12 in the U.S. last winter. It’s No. 2 in New Jersey in the early portion of the indoor season, behind a 24-3 1/4 by Kaelen Mitchell of Piscataway in a meet in Virginia last month. His 46-10 3/4 is No. 6 in South Jersey history. 

Pearson’s mark is No. 2 in Timber Creek history, behind only Larry Russell Jr.’s 23-3 3/4 to place third at the 2015 Easterns. That was the only time Russell ever competed in the long jump indoors. Russell went on to become a 25-foot jumper and NCAA Division 2 All-America at Barton College in Wilson, N.C.

Pearson’s previous PR was 20-2 1/2 in a SJTCA meet at the Bennett Center last February, and that was his only other mark over 19 feet on record, according to the database.

Whitaker also won the 55 and the 200 Saturday.

Kingsway graduate Allie Pierontoni, a freshman at Monmouth, had a terrific collegiate debut Saturday.

Pierontoni won a five-team cross country invitational over a muddy, slushy course in Montgomery, N.Y., in Orange County, about 50 miles north of the New Jersey border.

Pierontoni ran 18:22 and finished first in a field of 56 runners. A story on Monmouth University’s web site doesn’t say how long the course was but presumably it was 5,000 meters. The story also doesn’t say where in Montgomery, N.Y., the race was held.

This was Pierontoni’s first race since the 2020 indoor Meet of Champions at Ocean Breeze last March 8, where she placed 5th in the 3,200 in 10:52.53 for Kingsway. Full results of the women’s race aren’t available.

In the men’s race, there were three South Jersey graduates in the top 10.

Rider junior Ben Woodward, a graduate of Highland, ran 26:21.3 for 5th place; Monmouth freshman Sebastien Reed, a Pitman graduate, ran 26:31.2 for 8th in his first college race; and Camden Catholic graduate Richie Castaneda, a Rider sophomore, was 10th in 26:40.4.

How muddy was the course? Castaneda checked in on Twitter!

Timber Creek senior Brian Eaton opened his 2021 indoor season with a big 800 PR at the Bennett Center.

In a tri-meet with Highland and Delsea, Eaton won the 800 in 2:00.20, more than three seconds below his previous PR of 2:03.46 from the Ocean Breeze Invitational in January of last year. It was Eaton’s first race since Group 3 states last February. Eaton’s outdoor 800 PR is 2:06.67 from the 2019 Camden County Championships at Haddon Township.

Eaton’s time is fastest by a Timber Creek half-miler in 11 years, since Saliym Starkey ran 1:58.04 to place 3rd at the 2019 state Group 3 meet on the same track in Toms River.