Woodstown’s Molly Lodge, Pennsauken’s Jasmine Pope and Triton’s Nevaeh Lorjuste earned All-America honors Saturday with a record-setting 1,600-meter relay performance for Rowan at NCAA Division 3 Nationals in Virginia Beach.
Rowan ran 3:48.64, breaking a week-old school record and placing 5th in the fastest Division 3 relay ever run.
Rochester won out of the first section in 3:45.21, 4th-fastest in Division 3 history and only 33-100ths of a second off the record of 3:44.84 that Rochester set last year.
Rowan, racing in the 2nd section, broke its school record of 3:49.78 set last week at the AARTC Championships in Rochester.
Only 12 schools in Division 3 history have run faster than Rowan, including Rochester, 2nd-place Washington University [3:46.44], Williams [3:48.06] and Colby [3:48.64]. Rowan finished 8-1,000ths of a second behind Colby [3:48.631 to 3:48.639].
Lodge led off in 57.53, Pope split 58.23, Kathleen Pedersen of Hillsborough ran 57.16 and Lorjuste anchored in a lifetime-best 55.74.
This is the first time Rowan has earned All-America honors in a relay since 2012, when the distance medley team – with Jena Peacock of Our Lady of Mercy and Vanessa Wright of Haddonfield in the lineup – placed 7th in 11:55.14 in Grinnell, Iowa.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 