Sterling graduate Sydney Coppolino shattered her 800 PR this weekend in only her third outdoor 800 since the spring of 2017.
Coppolino, a Virginia junior, ran 2:07.26 and placed 6th in the Duke Invitational Saturday at the Morris Williams Track Stadium. She was one of three Virginia half-milers to run sub-2:08.
She actually ran in the second-to-last heat, placing second to North Carolina State’s Anna Vess, who ran 2:07.00, then she watched as her time held up for sixth place overall. She was out in 63.70 and back in 63.57.
Coppolino’s previous PR was a 2:07.96 last May at the ACC Championships in Raleigh, where she ran 2:07.96. But that was at the end of the spring season. This 2:07.26 comes early in the season with a month before the conference championships.
As a senior at Sterling, Coppolino ran 2:11.45 at the Meet of Champions at Northern Burlington and then for a variety of reasons didn’t run another outdoor 800 until last spring. She literally went nearly four years without running a competitive outdoor 800, although she did run 2:09.18 indoors at the indoor ACC meet in Blacksburg, Va., in February.
Her 2:07.26 ranks 11th in Virginia history – 1-100th of a second outside the all-time top-10. She’s No. 64 nationally in NCAA Division 1 and No. 8 in the ACC.
Coppolino is the second South Jersey girl under 2:10 so far this spring. Lenape graduate Shelby Whetstone, a Rutgers sophomore from Lenape, ran 2:08.02 at the Stanford Invitational.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 