Down to their final chance to qualify for NCAA Division 3 Nationals, Rowan’s 1,600-meter relay team – with three South Jersey legs – came up huge Wednesday at the AARTFC Championships in Cortland, N.Y.
Junior Molly Lodge of Woodstown, junior Jasmine Pope of Pennsauken, senior Kat Pederson from Hillsborough and junior Nevaeh Lorjuste from Triton ran 3:48.08 and placed 2nd to Rochester at the All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Championships. Rochester ran 3:47.72.
The Rowan women were ranked 26th in D-3 going into the race and only the top-16 teams in each relay qualify for nationals. But the 3:48.08 moved the Profs all the way up to 10th and an almost certain lane at nationals.
Rowan’s previous-fastest time this year was a 3:51.30 with Lodge, Pope, Pederson and Lorjuste at the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships in Galloway Township earlier this month.
Rochester had already run 3:47.30 this spring, so Rowan leapfrogged 16 schools to move into the No. 10 spot on the TFRRS Division 3 list, which is used to determine the qualifiers for nationals. The AARTFC is essentially a last-chance meet. The qualifying deadline is the end of the day Thursday. As of now the qualifying cutoff for the 4-by-4 is 3:49.70, so Rowan made it by over a second and a half.
Lodge and Pope handled the first two legs for Rowan – three-turn stagger so no splits for their legs because you’d need a timing system for every lane – and then Pederson split 56.30 and Lorjuste 56.22.
The time is Rowan’s fastest in 10 years, since Jessalynn Wright of Cherokee, Jamie Thompson from South Brunswick, Tashay Wilson from Hillside and Melirah Searcy of Edison set the school record of 3:44.60 at the 2014 NCAA Division 3 Championships at Selby Stadium at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio (your humble scribe’s alma mater).
The NCAA Division 3 Championships are scheduled for next Thursday through Saturday at Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
The top 22 in each individual event qualify for nationals, and with less than a day before the qualifying cutoff Lodge is 13th in the 400-meter hurdles [1:02.26], Anna Sasse of Williamstown is 20th in the steeplechase [10:48.66] and Isabelle Deal of Washington Township is 12th in the shot put [45-8] and 15th in the javelin [135-8].
Also in the 4-by-4, The College of New Jersey ran 3:56.10 and placed 6th with freshman Kelsey Thomas running the 3rd leg.
https://tf.tfrrs.org/lists/4517/2024_NCAA_Division_III_Outdoor_Qualifying_List?gender=f#event33
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 