Eastern’s Jewel Ash shattered the Charleston Southern intermediate hurdles school record Saturday for the second time this year.
Ash, a Charleston Southern sophomore, lowered her personal best and school record from 59.22 to 58.83 at the Aggie Invitational in Greensboro, N.C. She had run 59.22 at the Raleigh Relays on March 26.
Her time is No. 29 in NCAA Division 1 and it’s 8th-fastest in Big South Conference history.
Ash ran 1:01.46 at Eastern when she placed 6th in the 2019 Meet of Champions at Northern Burlington. She didn’t run any 400IH races in 2020 due to the shutdown and then had a best time of 59.50 last spring in the trials of the Big South Championships in High Point. She went on to win the conference title with a slightly slower time and also placed 2nd in the high hurdles and ran on 1st-place 4-by-1 and 4-by-4 teams.
Because of the 2020 COVID shutdown, this race was only her seventh intermediate hurdles race since the end of the 2019 season.
Her time is fastest by a South Jersey alumni since 2015, when Lenape graduate Evann Thompson and Winslow’s Ste’yce McNeil both ran faster.
Thompson set a Pitt school record of 56.87 at the NCAA East Regionals in Jacksonville, and McNeil, competing for Mississippi State, ran 58.38 at the Starkville (Miss.) Jeace LaCoste Invitational.
The fastest 400IH ever run a South Jersey product is Rancocas Valley graduate Tonya Lee’s 55.78 for Tennessee when she won the 1996 Mt. Sac Relays in Walnut, Calif.
Ash placed first in her race among college hurdlers. She placed second to Akala Garrett, running unattatched, who ran 57.65. Garrett was the national high school champion last year in the intermediates and runner-up in the high hurdles.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 