Lenape graduate Jasmine Staten shattered the 14-second barrier in the hurdles Saturday at the Larry Ellis Invitational in Princeton.
Staten, a junior at Bloomfield, placed 2nd in 13.92, behind only Villanova’s Jane Livington, the Big East runner-up last year. Livingston won the race in a PR of her own with a 13.55.
Staten’s PR at Lenape was 14.04 from her win at the 2016 South Jersey Group 4 sectionals at Egg Harbor Township.
From the end of the 2016 season through the start of this 2022 spring season, she only ran four hurdles races and did not race at all in 2017, 2019, 2020 or 2021.
Her collegiate best before Saturday was a 14.08 for Bloomfield, when she won the 100-meter highs at the Brick City Classic in Newark in April of 2018.
Staten returned to competition this spring this indoor season and had a season-best of 14.16 in a meet at Ramapo the first weekend of April.
On Saturday, she got started with a 14.17 in the trials, which was the 4th-fastest qualifying time, and then she flew in the finals with a legal tailwind of 0.7 meters per second.
Her time is No. 12 in NCAA Division 2. Bloomfield’s athletics web site does not list school records, and it may be the only college web site I’ve come across that doesn’t. There is no mention of Staten’s performance or the meet on Bloomfield’s web site.
Staten is well under the qualifying standard of 14.21 for the high hurdles at the NCAA Division 2 National Championships in Allendale, Mich., next month.
Click to access 2021-22D2XTO_QualifyingStandards.pdf
In the same race, Egg Harbor graduate Mariah Stephens, a freshman at Rider, palced 5th in 14.55. She ran a personal-best 14.47 in the trials, No. 6 in program history and 4th-fastest this year in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Her previous PR was 14.53 last month in a meet on her home track in Lawrenceville.
Penn freshman Shevell Higgs from Winslow actually ran slightly faster than Stephens in the qualifying heats [14.45] but didn’t qualify for the final because Stephens was an auto qualifier in the slowest round. Higgs finished 2-100ths of a second behind Staten in the trials. Only the winner of each of four heats and the next four-fastest advanced to the finals. Higgs has a PR of 14.31 from a meet in Fairfax, Va., last weekend.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 