Elijah Steward of Holy Spirit and Mike Mazero of Paul VI gave South Jersey a sweep of the 400s Friday at the state parochial track championships at the Bubble.
Steward, who had run 54.38 in his only previous indoor 400 earlier this week, ran 52.91 and won the Parochial B title by half a second over Matthew Martin of Immaculata of Somerville.
Steward did run 49.62 last spring when he won the outdoor Parochial B title at Neptune, but his strongest event is probably the long jump, where his PR is 22-4 ½, also from winning outdoor states last spring.
Minutes after Steward’s win, the Cornell-bound Mazero tore up the track, running 49.33 and winning by five meters over Nick Givan of Union Catholic, who was second in 50.02.
Mazero’s time is an indoor PR, breaking his previous mark of 50.45 from last week at Ocean Breeze. He’s run 48.52 outdoors, when he took 4th in the Meet of Champions last spring at South Plainfield.
It’s also fastest this year by a South Jersey runner going into tomorrow’s public school state meets and No. 2 in New Jersey, behind only Ocean Township’s Alexander Sadikov, who ran 48.25 earlier this month in a meet at Ocean Breeze.
Mazero’s time also broke the school record of 50.11 set in 2016 at Ocean Breeze by Maxwell Dickens and is No. 9 in Camden County history indoors:
48.27 … Jade Smith [Camden], 2002
48.50 … Alex Reber [Cherry Hill East], 2013
48.74 … John Morris [Camden], 2001
48.75 … Luke Colehower [Haddonfield], 2017
49.05 … William Mobley [Eastern], 1990
49.13 … Eric Chekemian [Washington Twp.], 2001
49.24 … Zachariah Murray [Haddonfield], 2019
49.26 … Tim Carey [Washington Twp,], 2010
49.33 … Mike Mazero [Paul VI], 2022
49.2h … Dennis Mitchell [Edgewood], 1984
49.2h … Maurice Young [Camden], 2002
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 