Washington Township’s Kanye Mills, a freshman at Point Park University, an NAIA school in Pittsburgh, won both hurdles races at the recent River States Conference championships at Robert Morris in Moon Township outside Pittsburgh.
Mills won the 110-meter highs in a slightly wind-aided 14.40 and won the 400-meter hurdles in 54.70. Both are PRs, although Mills’ wind-legal highs PR over the 42-inch barriers is 14.70 from a meet in March in Morgantown, W. Va.
The 14.70 broke the school record listed at 15.25 by Delsea graduate and current Point Park senior Damir Lomax last April in a meet at Slippery Rock, Pa. The 54.70 is No. 2 in school history behind a 53.74 by Malcolm Harris at the 2018 River States Conference meet in Pittsburgh. Mills also won the 60-meter hurdles at the conference indoor meet in February in Logan, Ohio.
Lomax placed 3rd in the hurdles finals in 15.28, 3rd in the 100 in 22.43 and ran the 2nd leg on the Pioneers’ winning 400-meter relay team, which ran 42.54. Mills and Lomax both ran on the 2nd-place 4-by-4, which ran 3:21.20, finishing 1-100th of a second behind Indiana University Kokomo.
Lomax was the 2021 River States indoor conference champ in the 60-meter highs and 400 and 2022 outdoor winner in the 100, 2023 indoor hurdles winner. He’s long jumped 22-5 for Point Park but did not long jump this spring.
Mills ran 14.54 over the 39-inch high school hurdles for Washington Township and 54.95 in the intermediates.
On the 2024 NAIA performance list, Mills ranks 17th in the 110 highs. There is literally nowhere on the NAIA track web site that says how many people qualify for the nationals, scheduled for May 22-24 at Indiana Wesleyan in Marion, Ind.
There are a couple other South Jersey athletes on Point Park’s track team. Senior Nasir Galloway of Woodbury placed 10th in the shot put at 42-10 ¼ and freshman Xavier Tolliver of Willingboro was 5th in the triple jump at 42-0 ½ and 11th in the long jump with a 20-1 ½.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 