Cherokee junior Conor Jacob and sophomore Robert Poplau both PR’d in the 800 Tuesday night at Haddonfield Distance Night as the Chiefs continue to pile up sub-2 half-milers this spring.

Jacob won the race in 1:55.93, and Poplau was 5th overall and the top sophomore with a 1:57.10.

Deptford junior Lathan Brown took 2nd with a PR of 1:56.19 and Camden Catholic senior Billy Clewell was 3rd in 1:56.36.

Some 15 half-milers broke two minutes, including Haddonfield junior George Andrus [PR 1:57.52], Woodbury sophomore Peyton Shute [PR 1:57.93], Timber Creek sophomore Robert Wakefield [1:58.30], Cinnaminson junior Derek Coceano [PR 1:59.30], Haddon Heights junior Jack Bolling [PR 1:59.50], Haddon Heights junior Matthew Iuvara [1:59.51] and Cherokee junior Thomas Bromley [1:59.85].

Jacob lowered his PR from 1:56.26 from the South Jersey Elite at Delsea earlier this month, and Poplau dropped his PR from 1:57.74 at the same meet.

Cherokee now has six runners under 2:00 this year, including three juniors and two sophomores. Ditmar and Jacobs are the top two juniors in South Jersey, and Bromley is 6th. Poplau and Kuenkel are No. 1 and 4 among sophomores. Overall, Cherokee has five of the top 18 underclassmen in South Jersey so far this spring.

1:55.01 … *Patrick Ditmars
1:55.93 … *Conor Jacob
1:57.10 … **Robert Poplau
1:58.72 … **Nick Kuenkel
1:59.23 … *Thomas Bromley
1:59.86 … Lucas Hatch

Jacob was in ninth place after a 58.04 first lap but closed in 57.89 to pass the entire field and edge Brown across the line by a step.

Brown’s race was notable because it was an outdoor PR by nearly 2 ½ seconds from his 1:58.59 at the South Jersey Open at Delsea. It looks like his time is fastest by a Deptford runner in 54 years – since Wayne Jenkins ran 1:53.54 (converted from yards). Brown ran 1:56.71 indoors at Easterns.

Delsea senior Jason Nwosu continues to move up the all-time South Jersey discus list.

Nwosu PR’d for the second meet in a row with a 183-9 at the Delsea Crusader Field #1 meet Wednesday. He had PR’d at 182-7 a week earlier at the Tri-County meet at Kingsway.

Nwosu ranks 12th in South Jersey history and No. 3 in Gloucester County history, behind only indoor World Championships shot put finalist Josh Awotunde [192-5 in 2013] and Deptford’s Ken Manahan [185-5 in 1976].

He’s No. 3 in New Jersey behind national freshman record holder Ben Shue of Bergen Catholic [193-0] and Southern Regional’s Fabian Gonzalez [189-9].

When the outdoor season began last month, Nwosu had a PR of 141-8 from last year’s state Group 2 meet at Franklin. He improved to 142-6 in his 2022 opener at the Deptford Spartan Relays, then 145-1 a week later at the Eagle Relays in Bayville.

His big breakthrough followed a week later at the Red & Black Invitational at East Stroudsburg, where he bombed a 177-10 to announce his ascension to one of the state’s best in the discus after establishing that indoors in the shot, where he threw 62-0 ½ feet to win states.

And now he’s added to that 177-10 two weeks in a row going into championship season.

Nwosu has the top throws in both the shot (61-7) and discus in Group 3 this year. He’ll compete at sectionals this weekend at his home facility at Delsea looking for his first outdoor sectional titles.

All-Time South Jersey Discus list
216-11 … Ron Dayne [Overbrook], 1996
199- 6 … Braheme Days Jr. [Bridgeton], 2013
197- 0 … James Plummer [Egg Harbor Twp.], 2013
192- 5 … Josh Awotunde [Delsea], 2013
189- 7 … Ray Wilks [Bridgeton], 1995
185-11 … John Mooers [Middle Twp.], 2015
185-10 … Russ Willett [Penns Grove], 1985
185- 7 … Matt Huckabee [Timber Creek], 2010
185- 6 … Kamron Kobolak [Cinnaminson], 2018
185- 5 … Ken Manahan [Deptford], 1976
184- 4 … Adam Hunt [Collingswood], 2017
183-9 … Jason Nwosu [Delsea], 2022
181-10 … Jason Winrow [Cumberland Reg.], 1989

Cherry Hill East graduate Jude Misko finished his tremendous collegiate career by winning his second straight national title in the hammer throw title Saturday at the NCAA Division 3 Championships.

Misko threw 198-3 and won by eight inches over Matt Ausse of Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisc., who threw 197-8 on the final day of the national championships at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

Stockton grad student Darren Wan from Egg Harbor Township also earned All-America honors in the event.

Misko won the title last year with a throw of 198-5 in Greensboro, N.C.

He’s the first to repeat since Eric Flores of Cal Lutheran of Thousand Oaks, Calif., in 2010 and 2011.

The only other back-to-back hammer winners since the inception of the D-3 national championship in 1974 are Thomas Lowell of Rensselear in Troy, N.Y., in 1975 and 1976, Jamie Brewster of Colby in Waterville, Maine, in 1997 and 1998 and Jeremy Wendt of Wisconsin-Whitewater in 2003 and 2004.

Misko is also the second Rutgers-Camden athlete to win back-to-back NCAA Division 3 titles. Deptford graduate Tim VanLiew won the javelin in the 2012 and 2013 meets.

As he did last year, Misko opened with the winning throw, and although he had three fouls in his series, he backed up the winner with a 198-0 throw that was second-best of the competition. Ausse was in 3rd place until he hit his 197-8 on his final throw.

Wan placed 6th with a PR and school-record 191-1 to earn his first All-America honor after placing 10th at last year’s meet. He actually had the two-best throws of his life in his series – he hit 190-9 on his second throw.

Wan’s previous PR was a 190-8 at the College of New Jersey in Ewing last month. He became the first Stockton thrower to earn All-America honors since Holy Spirit graduate Mike Mielke won the discus with a throw of 180-3 at the 1986 meet in La Crosse, Wisc.

Wan, who also starred in ice hockey at Stockton, graduated last week with a masters in business administration.

The Rowan men wrapped up the NCAA Division 3 National Championships by moving into the all-time Division 3 performance list in the 1,600-meter relay.

Rowan placed second in 3:10.06, which makes Rowan the 13th-fastest school in Division 3 history and is the 33rd-fastest time ever run by a D-3 school.

The team of John Owens from West Windsor-Plainsboro North, Nana Agyemang from Parsippany, Sterling’s Jah’mere Beasley and Amara Conte from Ferris High in Jersey City placed 2nd to Mount Union – Nick Sirianni’s alma mater – on the final day of the Division 3 Championships at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

Full splits are not available, but Beasley split 47.1 and Conte 47.3.

Rowan broke the school record of 3:10.56 set by Jayce Maxwell from Monsignor Donovan, Taylor Purdue from Highland Lakes, Ali Ejaz from Glassboro and Demetrius Rooks from Absegami when they won the national title in 2012 in Claremont, Calif.

Rowan’s time would have been fast enough to win the national title all but 11 times since the inception of the Division 3 championships in 1974.

Beasley also earned All-America honors in the 200 with a 6th-place finish in 21.22. He had run a PR 20.91 in the trials, No. 15 in Division 3 history.

Beasley also earned All-America in the 200 (3rd) and relay (1st) indoors, and last spring he was a triple All-America in the 200 (2nd), 400 relay (7th) an 4-by-4 (5th).

So with two full seasons to go in Glassboro he’s already a seven-time All-America.

Overall, Rowan placed 5th at nationals with 30 points.

Winslow graduate Nylah Perry PR’d in the 400-meter hurdles Thursday night and advanced to to the next round at the NCAA West Preliminary meet in Fayetteville, Ark.

Perry, a freshman at Iowa, ran 58.72, the No. 9 time in school history and a personal best by nearly a second.

Perry raced in the first of six heats and then had to sit back and wait to see if her time held up as one of the six-fastest wild-card times. The top three finishers in each of the six heats auto qualified for the next round as well as the next six-fastest times.

Perry placed 5th in the first heat, but her time held up as the 5th-fastest time outside a top-3 finish, and she survived to race another day – a remarkable achievement for a freshman who hadn’t broken 62 seconds in the intermediates early last month.

The wild-card cutoff turned out to be 58.80, so Perry qualified by 8-100ths of a second!

Perry’s PR was 1:02.00 as recently as last month. She ran 1:02.00 at Winslow at 2019 Group 3 sectionals at Delsea, didn’t compete outdoors in 2020 or 2021, and then opened her college career with a 1:01.95 early last month in Tucson.

She lowered her time to 1:00.59 two weeks later in Iowa City before dipping under 60 for the first time in the trials of the Big Ten Championships last week in Minneapolis with another PR at 59.67.

So her performance Thursday night was a PR of 95-100ths of a second, and she’s now lowered her time a ridiculous 3.28 seconds since early last month.

Perry missed qualifying for Saturday’s quarterfinals by X-XXXth of a second, but she was the No. 2 freshman in the entire field, behind only Abigail Schaaffe of Minnesota, who ran 57.79.

Rowan scored 19 points in the long jump and javelin on Day 1 of the NCAA Track Championships and advanced two others into the finals.

Rowan led the team scoring race by five points going into Day 2 on Friday at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

Sophomore Ahmir Johnson of Wissahickon High School in Lower Gwynedd Township, Montgomery County, PR’d in the long jump with a 24-9 ¾ for 2nd place in the long jump, and sophomore Nana Agyemang from Parsippany took 5th with a 23-11 ½ jump.

Johnson – the No. 14 seed – had a huge series with consecutive jumps of 24-6, 24-9 ¾ and 24-7 ½ – all beyond his PR of 24-1 ¾ from the New Jersey Athletic Association Championships earlier this month in Ewing, where he placed 2nd to Agyemang.

This is Johnson’s 3rd All-America honor but first in the long jump. He earned All-America honors when he won the triple jump national title last spring in Greensboro, N.C., and again indoors when he placed 4th in the triple jump this past indoor season in Winston-Salem, N.C. He’s the No. 5 seed in the triple jump, which is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday.

Johnson missed the Rowan school record of 24-10 by just a quarter of an inch. That was set by Eastern graduate Jeffrey Tucker at the 2017 Oscar Moore Invite in Glassboro.

This is Agyemang’s 4th All-America performance. He ran on Rowan’s 7th-place team in the 400-meter relay last spring in Greensboro and this past winter ran on the 1st-place 1,600-meter relay team and took 6th in the long jump in Winston-Salem.

In the javelin, junior Greg Poloso from Wayne Valley placed 3rd with a 216-3 throw for six points and grad student Dan McAleavey from Howell was 8th at 206-10 for one point. Freshman Lance Owens from Ocean City and senior Edgar Rosa from Paulsboro didn’t medal, but both PR’d – Owens with a 203-1 and Rosa with 202-4.

Sophomore Jah’mere Beasley ran 20.91 in the 200 trials, breaking the school record and advancing to the final, scheduled for 2:50 p.m. Saturday. He’ll be the No. 5 seed in the final.

Beasley broke the school record of 21.18 that was originally set by Al Ejaz of Glassboro in 2012 and tied by Beasley last year at the Fast Times Before Finals at Rowan.

The top 11 runners in the 200 PR’d, five of them with wind-aided performances. Beasley’s 20.91 was achieved with a legal tailwind of 1.9 meters per second. Ramapo junior Cheickna Traore from Innovation High in Jersey City was the 2nd-fastest qualifier at 20.73 but broke the meet record of 20.80 set by SUNY Oneonta’s Sean Bernstein in 2012 because the fastest qualifier – J.P. Vaught of Centre College in Danville, Ky. – ran a wind-aided 20.64.

Rowan ran the 3rd-fastest qualifying time in the 1,600-meter relay, with senior John Owens of West Windsor-Plainsboro North, junior Marquise Young of Sterling, Agyemang and sophomore Amara Conte of Ferris High in Jersey City running 3:13.44. The final is scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday.

Also, freshman Treshan Stevenson from Millville PR’d in the intermediates at 53.78. Although he didn’t advance to the final, he was the 3rd freshman and placed 15th overall.

Going into Day 2, Rowan has 19 points, five more than 2nd-place Wisconsin-Eau Clare. Wisconsin-Platteville (11), Carroll of Wisconsin (10) and MIT of Cambridge, Mass., have 10 each.

In the women’s meet, Shawnee graduate Amanda Demko ran on The College of New Jersey’s 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams, which both advanced to the final. Demko ran the second leg on the 4-by-1, which ran K46.64, 5th-fastest qualifying time, and she anchored the 4-by-4, which ran 3:49.62, 9th-fastest. Both finals are on Saturday.

TCNJ’s previous school record in the 4-by-1 also came in the preliminary round of nationals – 17 years ago at the 2005 NCAA Division 3 championships, when the Lions won the second heat in the trials in 47.01 at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.

Washington Township grad Isabelle Deal, a junior at Ursinus, earned All-America honors for the second year in a row at the NCAA Division 3 Track Championships.

Deal threw 137-0 and placed 6th in the javelin at the D-3 nationals at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio. She was 8th last year with a throw of 135-1.

Deal’s PR and the school record is 144-10 from the Larry Ellis Invitational in Princeton last month.

Deal threw 133-2 on her first attempt and 131-9 on her third and fouled on her second and fourth. She threw 126-8 on her fifth attempt and was sitting in 9th place – outside All-America range – before popping the 137-0 on her final attempt.

Ava Nelson of Pacific Lutheran in Parkland, Wash., won the event with a PR 150-8 on her first throw. The College of New Jersey’s Amanda Murillo, a senior from Middlesex High, placed 8th at 135-6, giving New Jersey two All-America selections in the event.

Jewel Ash advanced to the second round in the intermediate hurdles Thursday at the NCAA Eastern Preliminary meet in Bloomington, Ind.

Ash, an Eastern grad and sophomore at Charleston Southern, ran 58.29 and comfortably advanced to the quarterfinals.The top three finishers in each of six heats along with the next six-fastest runners from all the heats advanced to the next round.

Ash placed second in the fifth race, behind only Uniondale, N.Y., native Asia Jinks of Auburn, who ran 58.09.

The quarterfinals are scheduled for 7:25 p.m. Saturday, and the 12-fastest from those races will advance to the NCAA Championships along with the top 12 from the West Regional in Fayetteville.

Ash’s time was 11th-best Thursday. Her PR is 57.16 from the semifinals of the Big South Championships earlier this month in High Point, N.C.

If Ash is one of the top 12 on Saturday, she’ll race at 7:30 p.m. June 9 in the semifinals at the NCAA Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. The final is scheduled for 3:57 p.m. June 11.

Ash’s younger sister, Jailya, a freshman at UConn, ran 13.73 in the first round of the 100-meter hurdles at the same meet. She missed qualifying for the second round by 18-100ths of a second. She was the 5th-fastest freshman in the field.

Delsea graduate Elisia Lancaster, a senior at Southern Illinois, advanced to the NCAA Championships in Eugene with a top-12 finish at the West Preliminary meet Thursday in Fayetteville, Ark.

Lancaster threw 214-6 and placed 9th among the 48 qualifiers who competed Thursday. The top 12 finishers from each of two NCAA preliminary meets – the East Prelim in Indianapolis and the West meet in Fayetteville – advance to the NCAA Championships next month in Eugene, Ore.

The cutoff to qualify for nationals in the West Regional was 207-0, so Lancaster got through comfortably.

She opened with a 212-4 and followed that with her 214-6 and finished with a 214-5 for a very consistent three-throw series averaging 213-10.

Lancaster has a PR of 220-4 from her win in the Missouri Valley Conference Championships two weeks ago in Des Moines, Iowa. She’s thrown 214 or better in four straight meets .

Lancaster began her collegiate career in the spring of 2018 at Rowan Gloucester County. She won the shot, disc and hammer at the NJCAA Championships in Utica, N.Y., in both 2018 and 2019. She competed in the spring of 2020 for Towson before finding a home at Southern Illinois.

Lancaster throws next at the NCAA Championships at 6 p.m. EST June 9 at Hayward Field on the University of Oregon campus.

Big double for Williamstown junior Ciara Demarest at Delsea Tuesday night with personal bests and South Jersey No. 1 marks in both the shot and discus.

Competing at the Delsea Crusader Field No. 1 Invitational, Demarest won the shot put with a 41-¼ and the discus at 138-3. Both marks came on her final attempt of the competition.

She’s now No. 3 in New Jersey in the shot put behind Northern Valley-Demarest senior Casey Sullivan, who threw 45-8 at the Bergen County Championships in Old Tappan, earlier this month, and Columbia sophomore Madison Stevens, who threw 42-7 at the Essex County meet last week at Montclair, and she’s No. 2 in the state in the disc, behind only Union Catholic senior Jada Mia Puryear, who threw 139-1 at the Union County Championships in Berkeley Heights earlier this month.

In the discus, Demarest moved up to No. 8 in Gloucester County history with the best throw in nine years, and in the shot she’s No. 13 in county history.

She’s No. 2 in Williamstown history in both throws behind Typhanie Bates, who threw 44-2 ½ to win the 1995 state Group 3 meet and 140-6 a week earlier at sectionals. Bates went on to win the Meet of Champions in the shot that spring.

Demarest’s previous PRs were 40-0¾ at the South Jersey Elite meet at Delsea and 129-3 at the Woodbury Relays.

Demarest actually PR’d twice Tuesday in the shot put, hitting 40-1 ½ on her 5th throw before 40-0 ¾ on her final attempt. She had a near-PR 127-4 on her 4th attempt in the disc before bombing the 138-3 on her sixth attempt.

All-Time Gloucester County discus 129-foot club
172-2 … Jocelyn White [Delsea], 2004
161- 1 … Jamine Moton [Delsea], 1997
149- 3 … Tara Daniels [Kingsway], 2013
140- 6 … Typhanie Bates [Williamstown], 1995
139-7 … Victoria Imbesi [Our Lady of Mercy], 2009
139- 5 … Taylor Johnson [Kingsway], 2011
138¬-11 … Jen Frank (Delsea], 2006
138-3 … Ciara Demarest [Williamstown], 2022
131-5 … Chelsea Cioffi [Pitman], 2010
129-7 … Emily Hilt [Kingsway], 2015
129-3 … Stacie Belzer [Glassboro], 2002
129-2 … Brinae Thompson [Delsea], 2019

All-Time Gloucester County shot put 40-foot club
46-4 ……… Janiece Rose [Delsea], 2011
44-5 ……… Jamine Moton [Delsea], 1997
44-3 …. Jocelyn White [Delsea], 2004
44-2 ½ …. Typhanie Bates [Williamstown], 1995
43-8 ¾…. Janet Morris [Kingsway], 1991
43-7 …..… Shamire Rothmiller [Glassboro], 2008
42-7 ¼ … Tara Daniels [Kingsway], 2013
42-3 …… Tessie Allen [Kingsway], 2007
41-7 ¾ … Genevieve Rybicki [Our Lady of Mercy], 2007
41-5 ½ … Victoria Imbesi [Our Lady of Mercy], 2009
41-5 ½ … Amaya Reed-Clark [Paulsboro], 2019
41-0 ¾ … Emma Painter [Clayton], 1980
41-0 ¼ … Ciara Demarest [Williamstown], 2022
40-11 …… Lavon Childress [Paulsboro], 2011
40-3 … Angela Polino [Paulsboro], 2005