Rider junior Leo Zaccaria, a North Wildwood native who attended Cape May Tech and ran for Wildwood, ran a big mile PR Friday at Ocean Breeze.
Zaccaria ran 4:16.48 and placed third in the mile at the Wagner Invitational at the Ocean Breeze Athletic Center on Staten Island, N.Y.
Zaccaria finished behind William Cuthbertson of Wagner [4:12.38] and Karim Belmahdi of Monroe College [4:15.64].
In his only previous college race, Zaccaria ran a 4:36.10 mile in Albany last February, so that was his official previous mile PR. He ran 4:29.39 for fourth place in the 1,600 meters at the state Group 1 meet at the Bubble in the winter of 2019.
He does have an outdoor 1,500 PR of 3:56.19 from the Metro Atlantic Outdoor Championships this past May in Lawrenceville, which converts to a 4:15.09 mile.
At least based on the his TFRRS page, this is the first indoor race he has ever run at any distance in college.
The fastest indoor milers in Rider history from South Jersey are Terrance Armstrong of Camden (4:09.11 in 1994) and Tom Long of Cinnaminson (4:13.68 in 2000).
On Friday, Zaccaria came through 400 meters in 61.6 and the 800 in 2:06.5 before closing in 64.7 and 65.5.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 