Another meet and another PR for Cherokee graduate Lucciano Pizarro, a freshman at Penn State. 

Pizarro heaved the 16-pound shot 55-1 1/2 Saturday at a Penn State Tai-Meet at the Ashenfelter Center in State College, Pa. 

Pizarro, in his first three college meets, has improved from 50-3 1/4 to 53-10 1/2 to 55-1 1/2.

Pizarro popped his 55-1 1/2 on his second throw in a meet against Rutgers and Maryland. He finished behind only two teammates – senior Ben Peterson (59-5 1/2) and freshman Duane Knisley (55-4 3/4).

Penn State has its first meet away from State College this weekend with the Big Ten Preview at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, which will host the Big Ten Championships later this month.

In her first meet in nearly a year, Delsea graduate and Villanova junior Ashley Preston won the pole vault in the Wildcats’ season-opening dual meet against Army. 

Preston, a three-time Big East pole vault champ, cleared 12-5 1/2 in the meet at Gillis Fieldhouse in West Point, N.Y.

Preston passed through 11-7 1/4, then cleared 12-1 1/4 on her third attempt and 12-5 1/2 on her third attempt.

The official results show Preston raising the bar to 20-5 1/2 and missing three attempts, but considering that that’s about 4 1/2 feet above the world record we’re going to assume it’s a typo!

 

It was Preston’s first meet since she won the Big East 2020 indoor meet at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, with a personal-best 13-3 1/2. Preston’s outdoor PR is 13-2 1/4 from the 2019 Big East meet at Icahn Stadium in New York – her last outdoor competition.

Preston ranks 3rd in Villanova history indoors and 4th overall with her 13-3 1/2 clearance from last March. She’s never lost at a Big East meet.

Mount Laurel native Marielle Hall got a lane in a fast outdoor 3,000 Saturday and ran 9:05.72 in a star-studded field.

Hall, a Haddonfield High School graduate and a 2016 Olympian at 10,000 meters, placed eighth in the race held at Brophy College Prep High School in Phoenix.

Canadian Gabriela Debuts-Stafford won in 8:38.51, and Colleen Quigley [8:40.23], Karissa Schwiizer [8:40.25] and Elise Cranny [8:40.33] were all within two seconds of the lead.

Hall ran her PR of 8:48.72 in Portland, Ore., in July, which was her last race. The 9:05.72 is her 3rd-fastest time. The race Saturday produced the eight-fastest times so far in the world this year.

Hall came through 1,000 meters in 2:56.7 and hit 1,800 meters in a very fast 5:18.9, which had her in the lead group and on 8:51 pace. But a 75 and a 77 hurt her sub-9 hopes before she closed in 74.

Hall has PRs of 4:32.77 in the mile, 15:02.27 for 5,000 meters and 31:05.71 in the 10,000. 

Former South Jersey sprinters Dennisha Page and Bria Mack finished 1-2 Sunday in the 60-meter dash at a Penn State Tri-Meet in State College.

Page, a sophomore at Rutgers from Wilson, won the race in 7.58 and Mack, a Maryland senior from Williamstown, was second in 7.62.

Aliyah Harrison, a Rutgers junior from Sterling, made it three South Jersey girls among the top six, finishing sixth in 7.93.

Page, a transfer from Syracuse, was competing in her first race for Rutgers. She ran within 8-100ths of her PR of 7.50, which she set for Syracuse at the Greg Page Relays in December of 2019 at Cornell University’s Barton Hall in Ithaca, N.Y.

Page’s 7.58 ranks No. 7 in Rutgers history. The school record of 7.34 was set at the 2016 Big Ten Championships in Geneva, Ohio, by Williamstown High School graduate Gabrielle Farquharson.

Mack, a transfer from Florida, ran within 4-100ths of a second of her 60-meter PR of 7.58, which she ran on the same track in January of 2019.

Collingswood senior Josh Forrest ran 9:25.55 for a full two miles Saturday at the East Coast Invitational at the Virginia Beach Sports Center.

Forrest ran 4:41.7 and 4:43.9 placed 10th overall. It was his first race since running 15:23.65 for 5,000 meters in October in an outdoor 5,000 in Edison.

Forrest has run mainly the 800 and 1,600 in his high school career on the track, and this was his first 3,200 or two-mile either indoors or outdoors.

A 9:25.55 converts to 9:22.27 for 3,200 meters, which would put Forrest at No. 26 in South Jersey history and No. 8 by a Colonial Conference two-miler. Here’s the all-time Colonial Conference sub-9:30 list:

8:58.81 ….. Jonathan Vitez [Haddonfield], 2010
9:10.4y ….. Ken Medlin [Haddon Township, 1970
9:11.1y ..… Mike Butynes [Sterling], 1970
9:11.2y ..… Mike Elder [Haddon Twp.], 1974
9:14.31 ….. Jimmy Daniels [Sterling], 2013
9:14.70 … Martin Riddell [Haddonfield], 2020
9:16.7y … Jim Smith [Haddonfield], 1980
9:22.27y … Josh Forrest [Collingswood], 2021
9:22.60 … Brian Goldberg [Haddonfield], 2004
9:24.21 … Owen Long [Haddon Twp.], 2016
9:26.43 … Dan Gough [Haddonfield], 1987
9:28.51 … Matt Mitchell [Haddon Heights], 2006
9:28.99 … Chris Platt [Haddonfield], 2002

Strong collegiate debut for Winslow’s Isaiah Lewis Friday.

In his first official race ever over the 42-inch hurdles, the Syracuse freshman ran 8.10 in the trials of the 60-meter high hurdles at the Doc Hale Virginia Tech Elite in Blacksburg, Va.

He came back and ran 8.11 for fourth place in the final.

Lewis was one of three Syracuse hurdlers from South Jersey who made the finals. 

It was Lewis’s first race in nearly a year, since the indoor Meet of Champions at Ocean Breeze, where he placed third in 7.39 over the 39-inch hurdles at 55 meters. 

Lewis’s 8.10 is the No. 3 time among ACC freshmen, behind only Tyson Williams of Florida State (8.02) and Sims. It’s also No. 6 among freshmen so far in NCAA Division 3.

Syracuse sophomore Jamil Adams, also from Winslow, ran 8.15 for 5th in the final after an 8.17 in the trials. His PR is 8.06 from the Crimson Elite in Cambridge, Mass., in January of 2020.

Also, Syracuse sophomore Naseem Smith of Deptford ran 8.22 for 8th in the final after running 8.25 in the trials. He’s got an 8.08 PR, also from the Crimson Elite. 

Another freshman from South Jersey, Egg Harbor graduate Anthony Vasquez, just missed the final, opening his collegiate career with an 8.32 in the trials.

Syracuse’s fifth hurdler from South Jersey, senior Tyler Garland of Deptford, who has a PR of 7.86, was a scratch.

Gloucester County half-milers Katherine Byrne and Carly Nicholson finished 6-100ths of a second apart Friday in the 800 meters at the East Coast Invitational in Virginia.

Byrne, a senior at Clearview, ran a personal-best 2:21.79 and Nicholson ran 2:21.85 at the Virginia Beach Sports Center.

Byrne shattered her indoor PR of 2:27.03 from a SJTCA meet at the Bennett Center last February and also ran well under her outdoor PR of 2:23.30 set in May of 2019 at the Gloucester County Championships at Delsea, when she was second to Amirah Sharpe, who ran 2:21.47.

It was Byrne’s first race on the track since that SJTCA meet more than a year ago.

Nicholson, a Delsea senior, was running her second race of the season but her first since a meet at the Armory in October, when she was timed in 2:24.59. She came up just shy of her indoor PR of 2:21.32 set at 2019 indoor states, when she placed sixth.

North Carolina State freshman Kevin Antczak, in his first collegiate track race, ran 8:24.42 for 3,000 meters on Monday, the equivalent of a 9:01 for 3,200 meters.

Antczak raced at the Virginia Beach Invite at the Virginia Beach Sports Center.

Antczak’s time is No. 1 on the 2021 IAAF world under-20 performance list, albeit in an event that has not been contested very much this indoor season.

It was the first healthy track race for Antczak since the end of the 2019 outdoor season, when he ran 4:19.65 and 9:09.38 for Mainland Regional.

Antczak was out in 2:12 through 800 meters and 4:26 through the 1,600 and then came through 2,400 in 6:41. 

Antczak was hurt last indoor season and missed outdoors because of the pandemic. His last healthy indoor race was a 9:18.59 for fourth in the 3,200 at the 2019 Meet of Champions at the Bennett Center two years ago this month.

Antczak, 8th in the fall of 2019 at the Foot Locker Nationals in San Diego, had a strong XC season this past fall, running 23:59 at the ACC Championships in Cary, N.C., where he was the the sixth freshman across the line.

8:24.42 converts to about 9:01.6 for 3,200 meters or 9:04.8 for a full two-miles. Antczak had never run an indoor 3,000. His previous overall 3,000 PR was an 8:59.16 at the 2019 Penn Relays. 

Antczak’s 3,200 PR was that 9:18.59 from two years ago, but he clearly was ready to run a lot faster coming off a senior year XC season when he ran 15:29 at Holmdel, fastest time on the legendary 5K course by a South Jersey runner in 31 years.

Rutgers sophomore Claudine Smith of Atlantic City High triple jumped 40-1 1/2 at a recent meet at Penn State, the No. 3 mark in the Big Ten Conference so far this year.

Smith placed second at the Nittany Lion Opener earlier this month. She also ran 8.87 in the 60-meter hurdles.

The 40-1 1/2 is Smith’s second-best mark as a collegian. She set an indoor PR of 41-7 1/4 at the Vanderbilt Invitational a year ago in Nashville.

Smith’s outdoor PR is the South Jersey-record 42-2 from the 2019 Meet of Champions at Northern Burlington. That’s also No. 3 in state history. She has yet to compete outdoors as a collegian.