Pennsauken’s Bryce Tucker, buried in 5th place after the 8th hurdle, finished very strong and won his heat in the 400-meter hurdles Saturday at the USATF Under-20 Championships.
Tucker ran 51.97 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., and automatically qualified for Sunday’s final. The top two finishers in each of three races plus the next two-fastest runners advanced.
Tucker, a June graduate of Pennsauken High and incoming Rutgers freshman, came off the 8th hurdle in 5th place in 37.44, trailing North Carolina’s Blaise Atkinson [36.61], San Jose State’s Zaire Waring [36.80], El Camino Community College’s Lincoln Marschall [37.01] and Rowan’s Jason Agyemang [37.32].
But he moved into 4th over the 9th hurdle and 3rd over the 10th and final hurdle, then passed Atkinson and Waring in the final steps to win the heat and comfortably advance.
Tucker’s time wound up 2nd-fastest of the three heats, behind only Gage Gose, a recent graduate of Lander (Wy.) Valley High. Gose ran 51.82 to win the first heat. Tucker’s PR is 50.96 from his most recent MoC win at South Plainfield, and Gose’s is 51.48 from Hayward Field Nationals last month.
The final is scheduled for 6:46 p.m. EST on Sunday. Tucker will be in Lane 4, Rose in Lane 5. The top two finishers have the opportunity to represent the U.S. at the Pan Am Under-20 Championships Aug. 4-6 in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
The cutoff for advancement into the finals was 52.70. Alexander Sadikov, who was a close 2nd to Tucker at this year’s Meet of Champions with a PR 51.00, ran 52.70 to become the final qualifier to reach the eight-man final.
Agyemang, a North Plainfield High graduate who just finished his freshman year at Rowan, placed 15th overall in 54.32.
Agyemang, who ran his PR of 53.42 at Widener in May, placed 3rd in both the 110 highs [14.51] and 400 intermediates [54.29] at the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships in Mahwah in May. He placed 14th in the highs at the NCAA Division 3 Championships in Rochester, N.Y., also in May.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 