Georgetown’s Maya Drayton from Cherry Hill East won her first Big East title Saturday, running away from the field in the 400-meter dash.
Drayton, a Hoya junior, won the race in 54.44, finishing a whopping six meters ahead of 2nd-place Tatyana McKenzie of St. John’s, who was 2nd in 55.14 at the Dr. Conrad Worrill Indoor Track and Field Center in Chicago.
Drayton’s previous best was an outdoor 54.46 last spring at the outdoor Big East Championships in Storrs, where she placed 5th. Her previous indoor PR was a 54.78 at the 2020 Big East meet at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, where she placed 3rd.
The Georgetown women’s “media guide” on its web site hasn’t been updated in 13 years, but by taking the top indoor 400 times through 2009 and then updating through conference performance lists since then I’ve come up with my own version of an all-time Georgetown women’s indoor 400 list:
53.14 … Steffanie Smith, 1993
53.64 … Abigail Johnson, 2010
53.78 … Sasha Spencer, 2001
54.13 … Monica Hargrove, 2004
54.28 … Carron Allen, 2000
54.37 … Nickey Penado, 2001
54.44 … Maya Drayton, 2020
54.79 … Bridget Johnson, 1996
54.91 … Jennifer Bell, 1987
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 