In her first javelin competition in two years, Hammonton graduate Alexa Gardner, a sophomore at Rutgers, threw a personal-best 152-7 Saturday at the Maryland B1G Invite at Kehoe Track and Field Complex in College Park.

Gardner actually PR’d three times in the competition.

She  placed second to Penn State junior Madison Smith, who threw 165-7.

Gardner had a strong series, with three throws over 150 feet. She opened with a 137-10 before a personal-best 152-1 on her second attempt and then a 144-0. After a PR 152-2 on her first throw of the finals, she hit 142-8 on her fifth throw before popping the 152-7 on her final attempt.

Her previous PR was a 146-3 at the 2019 Metropolitan Championships at A.P. Randolph in New York. She last competed in the javelin at the 2019 Big Ten Championships in Iowa City in May of 2019.

Gardner’s throw is No. 5 in the Big 10 Conference so far this year. She’s the third South Jersey girl to hit 150 feet in the javelin already this spring. Brielle Smith of Oakcrest threw 157-5 for Stanford last weekend and RV graduate Danielle Staff of Monmouth hit 151-5 at Army last weekend. 

At Hammonton, Gardner had a best of 142-1, when she won the 2017 state Group 3 title at Northern Burlington.

Collingswood senior Josh Forrest made his way to North Carolina on Saturday to find a fast 3,200, and he wound up with a PR.

Forrest placed 6th of 246 runners in the New Balance Dash for Doobie 3200 at Ronald Reagan High School in Winston-Salem with a time of 9:21.22.

His previous PR was a 9:25.32 over a full two-miles at adidas Indoors last month in Virginia Beach. His 3200 time Saturday is equal to a 9:24.48 for two miles.

Forrest’s time is No. 1 in New Jersey in the early going this outdoor season and a school record. There wasn’t an outdoor season in 2020 and according to the MileSplit database, Forrest didn’t run outdoor track in 2019, and as a freshman in 2018 he only ran the 1,600, so this actually looks like his first outdoor 3,200 ever, if that’s possible.

Forrest ran 16:46 at Holmdel this past fall and 4:20.74 last week at Cherokee.

After a nearly two-year wait, Micah Wood finally got to run an intermediate hurdles race, and the result was victory and a big PR.

Wood, a 2019 Rancocas Valley graduate and now a Monmouth freshman, raced his first outdoor intermediates race as a collegian Saturday at Lafayette and won in 53.78.

That’s a giant PR of nearly two seconds for Wood. His previous PR was a 55.49 at the 2019 state Group 4 meet at Franklin Township High. This was his first 400IH race since the 2019 Meet of Champions a week later at Northern Burlington – 22 months ago.

Wood competed indoors for Monmouth last year – he ran a big 800 PR of 1:53.46 in a meet at Boston in January of 2020 – but Monmouth did not compete outdoors last year or indoors this past winter. 

On Saturday, Wood found himself in a two-person intermediates race at the Lafayette Open in Easton, Pa. The only other entrant, a Lehigh runner, ran just under 58, so Wood ran solo, which in the intermediates is not necessarily a bad thing. 

His time just misses the all-time Monmouth top-10 but isn’t far off. Some familiar names on that list for South Jersey track fans, including 2008 Egg Harbor graduate Stevenson Cajuste and 1992 Shawnee grad Jim Angermeier. The school’s freshman record of 52.58 was set by Chris Rutherford of Toms River East in 2009.

Wood also ran the third leg on Monmouth’s 1,600-meter relay team, which won in 3:16.05.

Monmouth’s other freshman from Rancocas Valley, Ian Moore, also PR’d at Lafayette. Moore, who ran 1:52.76 for Monmouth indoors last year, ran his first collegiate 1,500 and placed second in a field of 22 runners in 4:02.20, finishing behind only Bishop Eustace’s Connor Melko, a Lehigh sophomore.

Melko ran 3:59.66, but Moore’s time converts to 4:21.58 for a full mile (or 4:20.05 for 1,600 meters) and is a PR and an equivalent PR. He ran 4:23.33 indoors last year for a full mile.

We wrote about Melko last week after he ran a 3:52.88 at Lehigh. You can read that here.

Rider’s Richie Castañeda, a freshman from Camden Catholic, posted a monster 1,500 PR Saturday in the Penn Challenge at Franklin Field.

Castañeda’s time is No. 9 in Rider history and No. 3 among South Jersey high school graduates, behind Terrance Armstrong of Camden [3:46.02 in 1995] and Ron Brock of Riverside [3:50.95 in 1996].

The 3:53.41 ranks Castañeda 4th in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in the early going this spring.

This was Castañeda’s first outdoor college race on the track, his first collegiate 1,500, his first race of any kind since 2020 IC4As in early March last spring in Boston and his first outdoor race since he ran a 1:57.81 800 PR at the Cherokee Night of Racing in June of 2019.

The fastest freshman 1,500 I could find by a Rider runner going back to 2008 was a 3:55.86 in 2008 by Christian Gonzalez from Franklin High School. Since nobody on the Rider all-time top-10 is listed as having run faster than 3:53.41 between Brock’s 3:50.95 in 1996 and Gonzalez’s school-record 3:42.92 in 2010, that means Castañeda’s time is fastest by a Rider freshman since at least 1996.

Most schools do keep freshman class records. If anybody knows Rider’s freshman 1,500 record, let me know!

What a race!!!

In his first discus competition for Rutgers, Collingswood High School graduae Adam Hunt won the event at the Maryland Invitational Saturday with a huge personal best and the No. 4 mark in Rutgers history.

Hunt threw 174-7 on his sixth and final throw, winning by 10 inches over Penn State’s Thomas Bojalad, who threw 173-9.

Hunt threw 162-9, 163-3 and 156-6 in the trials but then bombed the three best throws of his life, PR’ing on three straight throws with 170-0, 170-10 and then the 174-7.

In his first outdoor meet wearing a Scarlet Knights uniform, Hunt moved into the No. 4 spot in school history.

After a year at Gloucester County College, Hunt competed indoors the last two years, focusing on the shot and weight throw, with PRs of 57-8 1/2 in the weight throw and 55-2 1/4 in the shot.

But the discus is his best event and he got to throw the plate Saturday for the first time since May 11, 2019, when he won the JUCO national title for Gloucester County College with a 145-3 throw at Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica, N.Y.

Hunt’s previous discus PR with the college/open implement was 165-0 from the Stockton Invitational in Galloway Township in April of 2019. 

Hunt’s 174-7 puts him at No. 4 in Rutgers history, according to Rutgers’ on-line fact book. He trails James Plummer of Central Regional (205-11 in 2013), Sam Segond (199-8 in 2005) and John Mooers of Middle Township (185-2 in 2019).

At Collingswood, Hunt had PRs of 184-4 with the high school discus and 49-1 in the shot. He placed second in the 2017 Meet of Champions to Jordan West of Rahwah, who now throws for Tennessee and PR’d Thursday with a 177-1 at the Florida State Relays.

The high school discus weighs 1.6 kilograms, and the college and international disc weighs 2 kilograms.

The Rowan sprinters didn’t waste any time putting down a fast 4-by-1.

Rakim Coyle, Donovan Clement, Nana Agymang and Jah’mere Beasley ran 41.67 Friday unpressed to win the 400-meter relay at the Stockton Invitational in Galloway Township.

Rowan’s time is No. 1 in NCAA Division 3 so far this spring, bumping Piedmont College of Demorest, Ga., which ran 41.85 on Friday at a meet in Birmingham, Ala.

Three of Rowan’s four legs are freshmen who were competing in their first college track meet.

Coyle is a junior from Wildwood Catholic and was an All-American long jumper two years ago, but Clement is a freshman from Deptford, Agymang a freshman from Parsippany and Beasley a freshman from Sterling.

Agymang also won the 100 in 11.34, leading Rowan to a 1-2-3-4 sweep along with Beasley, Clement and Naxier Jenkins of Perth Amboy, and he led a 1-2-3 sweep of the 200 in 22.37, with Beasley and Clement second and third.

Rowan did not compete indoors or last spring outdoors, so this was Rowan’s first track meet since March 7, 2020, when the Profs won the All-Atlantic Region Championships at Nazareth College in Rochester, N.Y.

Rowan’s school record of 40.82 was set in 2003 by Ed Fortune, Matt Davis, Highland’s Jorge Santiago and Camden’s Tyree Jackson when the Profs placed 3rd at the NCAA Division 3 meet in Canton, N.Y.

In her first collegiate race, Shawnee graduate Amanda Demko won the 400 Friday at the Stockton Invite in Galloway Township.

Demko ran 58.84, edging teammate Megan Gasnick, who took second in 59.04.

She ran within 1-5th of a second of her outdoor PR of 58.66, which she ran at Group 4 sectionals at Washington Township in the spring of 2019 (her last outdoor race). Demko’s overall PR is 58.54 from the 2020 Meet of Champions at Ocean Breeze.

Demko also placed fourth in the 200 in 27.39 and ran the third leg on TCNJ’s first-place 4-by-4, which ran 4:08.04. Demko split 60.9.

Curtis Thompson extended his 2021 season javelin best to 258-11 at the Texas Relays in Austin on Wednesday.

The meet produced three of the top-15 marks in the world this year.

Anderson Peters of Grenada, the 2019 world champion and Thompson’s college teammate, won the event with a throw of 270-8, No. 5 in the world this year. American Michael Shuey was second at 265-9, No. 10 in the world, and Thompson, a Florence High graduate, placed third with the No. 15 mark on the IAAF 2021 list.

Shuey and Thompson are No. 1 and No. 2 Americans in the early going of the outdoor season.

This was only Thompson’s second competition in the last two years. His entire 2020 season was wiped out by the pandemic. Thompson opened with a 252-8 last week at the Falcon Classic in Montavallo, Ala.

Thompson had season bests of 249-1 in 2017, 249-4 in 2018 and 258-7 in 2019, so this is his biggest throw in five years, since his huge 2016 season when he won the NCAA title in Eugene for Mississippi State, set an Olympic Trials record before placing second at the Trials also in Eugene and threw over 260 feet four times, including his PR of 271-10 at the Trials.

Specifically, the 258-11 on Wednesday is his best throw since a 260-11 at the American JavFest in Stroudsburg, Pa., on July 30, 2016.

Junior Nikki Clifford’s 59.8 anchor leg – 20 minutes after a 2:19.4 open 800 – helped Cherokee run the fastest 4-by-4 in the state so far this year.

Cherokee ran 4:04.4 in an outdoor “indoor season” dual meet against Cinnaminson Thursday at Cherokee. The fastest previous time run by a New Jersey high school this year indoors or outdoors was Hillsborough’s 4:06.5 in an outdoor meet Saturday at Hunterdon Central.

The fastest previous 4-by-4 this year indoors or outdoors by a outhitting Jersey school was Cherokee’s 4:10.43 indoor at the Bubble on Monday. The 4:04 is Cherokee’s fastest 4-by-4 since 2016.

Junior Allison Cooke led off for the Chiefs with a 60.5 split, soph Kelsey Giglio followed with a 61.7 and senior Meghan Carroll ran 62.4 to set up Clifford.

About 20 minutes earlier, Clifford negative-split a 2:19.4, going out in 71.3 and coming back in 68.1. Niglio (2:25.9) and Carroll (2:30.1) also doubled back after running the 800. All four of them then ran a 4-by-200 about 10 minute later, winning in 1:54.8.

Clifford’s 2:19.4 was only about half a second off her PR of 2:18.87 on the same track in June of 2019. Clifford is the second South Jersey girl to go under 2:20 this year indoors or outdoors. Haddonfield’s Lindsay Colflesh ran 2:15.18 at the Cherokee Winter Distance Invitational last week. 

Rancocas Valley graduate Danielle Steff, a junior at Monmouth, threw 151-5 in her first javelin competition in two years.

Steff competed Saturday at a Monmouth-Army dual meet at Shea Stadium in West Point, N.Y.  

Her mark is No. 16 in NCAA Division 1 so far this outdoor season and No. 1 in the Metro Atlantic Conference.

It’s also No. 29 among all U.S. women through Thursday, according to the IAAF performance list.

Steff has a PR of 164-2 from the NCAA East Regional Preliminary meet in Jacksonville in May of 2019. She went on to place 23rd at NCAAs. Her 164-2 is No. 2 in Monmouth history, behind a 164-3 by Kelsey Reese in 2014.

At Army, Steff also threw the discus a personal-best 130-7 and the shot 37-7 1/4. She has a shot PR of 39-11 1/4 from a meet at Navy in January of 2020. She had never thrown the discus before in a college meet. She had a high school PR of 99-5 from a meet in 2016 at Lenape. Her shot put mark is No. 3 currently in the Metro Atlantic.

Steff had a high school best of 139-0 in the javelin, No. 17 in South Jersey history going into this spring season.