Woodrow Wilson graduate Dennisha Page, now a post-grad student at Tennessee, ran one of the fastest 60-meter dashes in the world this year as well as a 200-meter dash indoor PR this weekend at Texas A&M.
Page ran 7.23 and 23.60 at the Ted Nelson Invite at the R.A. Murray Fasken ’38 Indoor Track in College Station, Texas.
That’s No. 12 in the world according to the World Athletics database and No. 8 among U.S. women.
Her previous 60 PR was 7.26 in the prelims of the Tyson Invitational at Arkansas’s Randall Tyson Track in Fayetteville, Ark., last February. Her previous indoor 200 PR was a 23.61 last January at the Bob Pollock Invitational at Clemson Indoor Track. She was competing for Rutgers when she ran both those times.
The 7.23 is No. 6 in Tennessee history and No. 6 on the 2023-24 NCAA Division 1 performance list.
It’s also 4th-fastest ever by a New Jersey sprinter, behind Montclair’s Me’Lisa Barber [7.01 in Moscow, Russia, in 2006] Eastern’s English Gardner [7.10 in New York in 2019] and Montclair’s Mikele Barber [7.14 in Albuqurque in 2010] and just ahead of Lakewood’s Shavon Greaves [7.24 at State College in 2010], Montclair Immaculate’s Dominique Booker [7.24 in Fayetteville in 2011] and Paramus Catholic’s Myasia Jacobs [7.24 in Boston in 2016].
Page was the 5th-fastest qualifier with a 7.37 in the trials before the 7.23 breakthrough race in the final. She placed 2nd to Jacious Sears, who won in a world No. 2 7.10. Sears is No. 2 in college track history with a 7.04 last winter. That’s No. 13 in U.S. history.
Page’s lifetime best at 200 meters is 23.08 from the prelims of the Big Ten Championships in June in Bloomington, Ind. That’s the No. 8 time ever run by a New Jersey high school graduate for 200 meters and No. 3 by a South Jersey woman.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 