With track season finally over, we’ll catch our breath and spend the next couple weeks taking a look at some top South Jersey athletes who fell through the cracks this year that we didn’t have a chance to write about.
Today: Julian Coppage-Seepersaud, Thomas Howard Jr., Xavier Bancroft, Jameer Bellamy, Caleb White
Julian Coppage-Seepersaud ran 11.11, 22.91 and 49.18 this year. Thomas Howard Jr. ran 22.34 and 50.77. Xavier Bancroft ran 11.34, 22.60 and 51.27. Jameer Bellamy clocked a 11.34 and Caleb White 54.49.
Some pretty fast sprinters for Rancocas Valley this spring.
What’s crazy is that all of them are freshmen.
R.V. assembled the greatest collection of freshman sprinters on record, which means since MileSplit began putting together its New Jersey performance lists in 2006. Before that, it’s impossible to determine what year many runners were since most results didn’t list grades and New Jersey Track Annuals, which did list grades, didn’t have particularly deep lists.
But since 2006, no other New Jersey school had three freshmen run 51.27 or faster the same year or three freshmen at sub-23.00.
Coppage-Seepersaud was the No. 2 freshman at 100 meters in New Jersey, 2-100ths of a second behind Piscataway’s Donald Nwaigwe, who ran 11.09. Howard Jr. and Bancroft were both among the top 10 freshmen in the 100.
In the 200, Howard Jr. and Bancroft were two-fastest freshmen in the state this year, and Coppage-Seepersaud – we’ll shorten it to JCS – was No. 4, with Pennsauken’s KaRon Ali breaking up the Red Devil group with a 22.69.
In the 400, JCS and Ali were the top two freshmen in the state – Ali ran 49.39 at sectionals. Howard was 5th and Bancroft 8th.
JCS is the fastest South Jersey freshman since Haddonfield’s Luke Colehower ran 48.31 in 2016. He also split 48.29 anchoring R.V.’s 1,000-meter sprint medley at West Philly Nationals. The Red Devils earned All-America honors with a 3rd-place finish in 1:57.33. Howard Jr. also ran on that team, as did senior Jadon Kendrick and sophomore David Smith.
He’s also closing in on the R.V. school record of 48.88 set by Brian Merriman at the 2017 Meet of Champions at Northern Burlington.
R.V.’s school records in the two short sprints are 10.72 and 21.66 by Sterling Pierce in 2015.
White also ran 54.49, which means R.V.’s four-fastest freshmen went 49.18, 50.77, 51.27 and 54.49, which adds up to 3:25.71 – without accounting for running starts in a relay.
Over the last 18 years, JCS, Howard Jr. and Bancroft are the three-fastest freshman in the 400 in Burlington County.
Let’s add up R.V.’s four-fastest freshmen in the 200: 22.34, 22.60, 22.91, 23.93 for a composite total of 1:31.78.
You never know how freshmen are going to progress. Some find other interests or other sports. Some just don’t improve. Some transfer out. But this group has a ton of potential, and it’s going to be fun following their progress over the coming years.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 