Remarkable record-setting day for Penn junior Aliya Garozzo of Paul VI, who won the 100- and 400-meter hurdles Sunday at the Ivy League Championsghips with PRs in both races and a school record in one. She also anchored Penn’s winning 1,600-meter relay team.
She’s only the fifth woman in the nearly half a century history of the Ivy League Championships to sweep the two hurdles races and the first woman since Harvard’s Autumne Franklin in 2016. She’s the first Penn woman to win both.
Garozzo won the 100-meter highs in 13.59, finishing 2 ½ meters ahead of Harvard junior Izzy Goudros, who ran 13.92, Her previous PR was 13.65 at a home meet at Franklin Field last month. She ran 13.52 in the trials, but it was aided by a 2.5 meters-per-second wind. Her 13.59 was run with an allowable 0.2 mps tailwind.
Garoszo’s 13.59 moves her into the No. 3 spot all-time in Penn track history, and it’s 7th-fastest ever by a South Jersey high school graduate (see list below). It’s also 10th-fastest in meet history and fastest sinc 2018.
Interestingly, Garozzo didn’t run the high hurdles for Penn until last year. Her first collegiate 100-meter hurdles race was in March of 2023 at Penn. She ran 14.12, won Heps indoors at 8.37 and then picked up where she left off indoors, with that 13.65 in her first race. She hasn’t lost a high hurdles race the entire spring.
In the intermediates, Garozzo blasted a 56.34, shattering her own school record of 57.22 by nearly a full second. Harvard sophomore Chloe Fair, the winner last year, also PR’d in 2nd in 56.86. That time will put her somewhere within the top-20 American women this year once all of this weekend’s results are compiled.
Garozzo’s 56.34 is fastest by any Ivy League runner in seven years, since Harvard’s Jade Miller ran 56.17 at NCAA Division 1 East Prelims in Lexington, Ky., in May 2017. It’s 2nd-fastest in meet history, behind only 2016 winner Franklin, who ran 55.87 It’s also 4th-fastest ever by an Ivy League runner in any meet.
It’s also 4th -fastest ever by New Jersey native.
Sydney McLaughlin of Union Catholic, the Olympic gold medalist, set the world record of 50.68 at the World Championships in Eugene, Ore., in July 2022; Tonya Lee of Rancocas Valley, an Olympic Trials finalist in 1996, ran 55.78 in Walnut, Calif., in April 1996; and Winslow Township’s Krystal Cantey ran 56.21 in May 2007 in Gainesville, Fla.
Garozzo also anchored Penn’s winning 1,600-meter relay team with a 52.88 split. Morayo Kassim, Jocelyn Niemiec and Amelia Kristen ran the first three legs. Penn ran 3:38.92. The Quakers set an Ivy League record of 3:29.29 at the Penn Relays.
In addition to Franklin, the only other hurdlers to win both races the same year in the meet’s 46-year history are Princeton’s Sally Anderson in 1981, Brown’s Susan Smith in 1991, 1992 an d 1993, Harvard’s Brenda Taylor in 1999 and Columbia’s Kyra Caldwell in 2010
Penn edged Princeton 184 ½-184 to win the team title.
All-Time New Jersey 400-Meter Hurdles list
50.68 … Sydney McLaughlin [Union Catholic], July 22, 2022, Eugene, Ore.
55.78 … Tonya Lee [Rancocas Valley], April 21, 1996, Walnut, Calif.
56.21 … Krystal Cantey [Winslow Twp.], May 26, 2007, Gainesville, Fla.
56.34 … Aliya Garozzo [Paul VI], May 5, 2024, Princeton, N.J.
56.87 … Evann Thompson [Lenape], May 30, 2014, Jacksonville, Fla.
56.91 … Angela Lee [Franklin Twp,.], May 24, 1998, Fairfax, Va.
57.14 … Leslie Njoku [McNair Academic], June 8, 2011, Des Moines, Iowa
57.16 … Jewel Ash [Eastern], May 9, 2022, High Point, N.C.
57.31 … Danielle Myricks [Willingboro], May 19, 2002, Columbia, Mo.
57.84 … Arianna Smith [Pennsville], May 6, 2023, Philadelphia
All-Time South Jersey 100-Meter Hurdles List
12.34 … Nia Ali [Pleasantville], Oct. 6, 2019, Doha, Qatar
13.11 … Tionna Tobias [Winslow], May 25, 2023, Bloomington, Ind.
13.28 … Ste’yce McNeil [Winslow], May 15, 2015, Starkville, Miss.
13.30 … Shameka Marshall [Oakcrest], May 28, 2005, New York
13.36 … Samantha Sharper [Wilson], May 12, 2013, Houston
13.57 … Jailya Ash [Eastern], May 12, 2023, Villanova, Pa.
13.59 … Aliya Garozzo [Paul VI], May 5, Princeton, N.J.
13.61 … Sherese Price [Pleasantville], May 4, 2002, Storrs, Ct.
13.64 … Magenta Taylor [Willingboro], March 24, 2001, Houston
13.71 … Imani Gilliam [Pennsauken], May 17, 2008, Princeton
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 