Clayton senior Alanna Woolfolk won her 2nd consecutive Easterns high jump title Tuesday, becoming only the 4th girl in South Jersey history to win back-to-back Easterns championships in any event.
Woolfolk won with a 5-6 clearance at the Armory. She’s has entered 11 meets this winter and won every one. Going back to last spring, she hasn’t lost to a New Jersey girl in her last 16 meets, since the Penn Relays, which was won by Howell’s Samantha Strydesky. Woolfolk and Strydesky then went 1-2 in the Meet of Champions. Strydesky has since graduated and now jumps for Penn.
Woolfolk is one of two New Jersey jumpers to clear 5-8. Rahway’s Saniyah Evans cleared 5-8 at a meet at the Jersey City Armory last month. She didn’t high jump at Easterns, although she did win the long jump at 18-3 and placed 4th in the hurdles in 8.15.
The only other South Jersey girls to win the same event in back-to-back years are sprinters Denise Mitchell of Edgewood, Amandi Rhett of Moorestown and English Gardner of Eastern.
Mitchell won the 60-yard dash in 1983 and 1984, Rhett the 55 in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and Gardner in 2007, 2008 and 2010. Shawnee pole vaulter Danielle O’Reilly won the pole vault twice, but that was in 2002 and 2004 and not in consecutive years.
On the boys side, there have been seven repeat winners: Edgewood’s Denise Mitchell – Denise’s brother – in the 60-yard dash in 1983 nad 1984, hurdlers Gerard Reynolds of Willingboro in 1989 and 1990 and Sultan Tucker of Delsea in 1995 and 1996, high jumpers Terry Ferguson of Cherry Hill West in 1986 and 1987 and Mike Morrison of Willingboro in 2002 and 2003, long jumpers Carl Lewis of Willingboro in 1978 and 1979 and Isaac Samuels of Kennedy in 1982 and 1983, and shot putter Braheme Days Jr. in 2012 and 2013.
Woolfolk entered the competition at 5-2 and was clean at 5-2, 5-4 and 5-6 before missing three attempts at 5-8. Runner-up Adanna Obuba of Montgomery cleared 5-4 but had two misses at 5-2, so she would have had to clear 5-8 to finish ahead of Woolfolk.
At Ocean Breeze on March 3, Woolfolk will shoot for her 3rd Meet of Champions title. She won indoors as a sophomore at 5-6 and outdoor last year at 5-8.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 