Pennsville graduate Arianna Smith, a junior at Princeton, advanced in the 400-meter hurdles at the NCAA Eastern Region Preliminaries Thursday evening in Jacksonville.
Smith, who randomly drew the difficult Lane 8, ran 58.58 to make it to Friday’s quarterfinals. Smith just PR’d at 57.84 in her last race, the final of the Ivy League Championships at Franklin Field earlier this month. Thursday’s 58.58 in the outer-most lane is her 2nd-fastest time ever.
Smith’s 57.84 broke a 40-year-old Princeton school record – 58.19 set by Sally Anderson when she was 9th at the 1983 NCAA Championships in Houston.
The 400IH quarterfinals are scheduled for 7:25 p.m. Saturday. There will be three races with eight runners, with the top three finishers in each race and the next-three-fastest runners advancing to the semifinals at the NCAA Championshiops in Austin next month.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 