Remember when we wrote earlier this month about Eastern graduate Jewel Ash running a 400 PR in her first race of the indoor season? https://sjtrackblog.com/2022/01/26/eastern-grad-jewel-ash-runs-huge-400-pr-and-2-all-time-for-charleston-southern/
That PR did not last long.
Ash, a freshman at Charleston Southern, destroyed her PR for the second time in two weeks on Saturday when she ran 55.04 at the Bob Pollock Invitational at Clemson.
Two weeks earlier on the same track, Ash ran 55.61 at the Clemson Invitational, shattering a PR of 57.32 that dated back to the 2018 outdoor state Group 4 meet at Franklin Township. As a 400 hurdler, Ash rarely runs the flat 400.
But that 55.04 is No. 2 in school history and fastest since 2009, when Dionne Gibson set the school record of 54.60 at the New Balance Invitational at the Armory.
Her time is No. 2 this year in the Big South Conference, behind only North Carolina A&T’s Delecia McDuffie, who ran 54.95 in the same race as Ash ran her 55.04.
Ash already holds the school record in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles with her 59.50 at the Big South Meet this past spring. But judging by the way she’s dropping her flat 400 time, that 59.50 could very well go by the wayside this spring.
Hopefully Ash also gets a chance to go after the school record in the outdoor 400. Gibson ran 54.39 at the 2008 Georgia Tech Invitational.
Ash is also No. 6 in school history outdoors in the 100-meter hurdles with her 14.14 at the Big South Meet.
Ash also ran the leadoff leg on Charleston Southern’s 1,600-meter relay tam that ran 3:49.73 this past weekend, No. 3 in school history indoors.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 