From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

I recently posted a list of all South Jersey athletes headed for the NCAA Division 1 Track Championships.

Turns out I missed a couple guys. A couple very impressive guys enjoying breakthrough 2024 outdoor seasons.

Mainland graduate Mawali Osunniyi, a freshman at Connecticut, is scheduled to compete in the high jump at the NCAA East First Round at 2 p.m. Friday in Lexington, Ky.

Osunniyi is tied for No. 6 freshman in NCAA Division 1 this year with a 7-1 ¼ from the UConn Northeast Challenge in Storrs back in April.

In all, he’s cleared 7-0 or better four times this year, including twice indoors. He won the indoor Big East title in Chicago with a 7-0 ¼ clearance and won the outdoor conference title at 6-11 at Villanova.

As we know from writing about Jailya Ash, UConn is one of the few Division 1 programs that doesn’t list an all-time top-10 anywhere on its web site, so we can’t tell you where Osunniyi ranks in school history. They do have media guides from 2009 through 2016 posted but none of them have all-time performance lists either.

Osunniyi only competed in the high jump one season at Mainland with a best of 6-8, which he cleared six times last spring. He played basketball in the winter and according to MileSplit his first competition ever was the 2023 Bridgeton Relays about 13 months ago. By June he was state Group 3 champ and 2nd in the Meet of Champions.

He also triple jumped 47-0 ½ in high school and was runner-up in the state Group 3 meet at Delsea. He hasn’t triple jumped yet in college, although a 47-0 ½ would have placed in the top five at the Big East meet.

Although the UConn web site is useless, we can tell from TFRRS that Osunniyi is already UConn’s best high jumper since Noel James cleared 7-1 ½ at indoor IC4As in Boston in 2012. Earlier that winter he cleared 7-3 in a meet at Penn State. But James’ best outdoor jump was a 7-0 ½ in Baton Rouge, and it appears that Osunniyi’s 7-1 ¼ is the best outdoor jump by a Huskie since at least 2010 (as far back as TFRRS goes).

I believe Osunniyi is Mainland’s first 7-footer since Paul Klemic, who cleared 7-4 1/2 – still the state record – at 2000 Outdoor Nationals in 2000. 

The other South Jersey athlete I missed is South Florida junior Gabriel Moronta, who will run on USF’s 5th-seeded 1,600-meter relay team, which ran 3:02.16 in March at the Florida Relays in Gainesville. Moronta, a transfer from Mississippi State, ran an eye-popping 400 PR of 45.81 in San Antonio two weeks ago. That’s 4th-fastest ever by a South Jersey athlete and should have qualified Moronta for the open 400 at East Regionals – it’s 17th in the East – but he wasn’t entered.

The only South Jersey athletes to run faster are Olympic gold medalists Lamont Smith [44.30 in 1996] and Dennis Mitchell [45.26 in 1986] as well as Woodbury’s Darrell Bush [45.49 in 2015].

Moronta is now under the B standard of 46.00 for the Olympic Trials next month in Eugene. He’s not far off the A standard of 45.20.

Moronta only ran one open 400 at Mississippi State and ran 46.24 in an indoor meet at Clemson in February of 2023. He focused more on the 400-meter hurdles [51.38] and 800 [1:49.33]. This spring at South Florida, he hasn’t run a single 400 hurdles race and his focus has been on the 400. Sure looks like that was the right thing to do.

South Florida races in the 4-by-4 quarterfinals at 8:45 p.m. Friday.

7-5 ¾ … Darren Burton [Delran], July 23, 1989, Ylivieska, Finland
7-5 ¼ … Mike Pascuzzo [Lenape], June 6, 1992, New York
7-4 ½ … Jim Pringle [Moorestown], March 21, 1982, Tallahassee, Fla.
7-4 ½ … Paul Klemic [Mainland Reg.], June 17, 2000, Raleigh, N.C.
7-4 ½ … Montez Blair [Timber Creek], June 23, 2013, Des Moines, Iowa
7-4 ½ … Robert Jordan [Millville], 2000
7-4 ¼ … Terrance Ferguson [Cherry Hill West], May 5, 1991, Princeton, N.J.
7-3 ¾ … Mike Morrison [Willingboro], May 14, 2005, Nashville, Tenn.
7-3 … Anthony Butler [Schalick], June 10, 2006, Colts Neck, N.J.
7-2 ¼ … Jeffrey-Jon Tucker [Eastern], April 28, 2018
7-1 ¾ … Drew Kanz [Seneca], Feb. 28, 2014, Birmingham, Ala.
7-1 ½ … Devin Bradham [Williamstown], May 3, 2019, University Park, Pa.
7-1 ½ … Mawali Osunniyi [Mainland Regional], Feb. 2, 2024, Cambridge, Mass.
7-0 ½ … Todd Lowber [Delran], May 26, 2006, Lisle, Ala.
7-0 … Kerry Vivett [Edgewood], Feb. 8, 1986, Oklahoma City

44.30 … Lamont Smith [Willingboro], June 19, 1996, Atlanta
45.26 … Dennis Mitchell [Edgewood], April 12, 1986, Tampa, Fla.
45.49 … Darrell Bush [Woodbury], April 11, 2015, Tucson, Ariz.
45.81 … Gabriel Moronta [Pleasantville], May 10, 2024, San Antonio, Texas
45.98 … Antonio Abney [Willingboro], May 29, 2010, Charlotte, N.C.
46.05 … Schefer Sherrer [Vineland], May 18, 2005, Levelland, Texas
46.13 … Brandon Outlaw [Moorestown], May 15, 2021, Raleigh, N.C.
46.19 … Maurice Ransome [Vineland], May 23-25, 1990, Naperville, Ill.
46.26 … Marvin Lewis [Willingboro], July 29, 2010, Nairobi, Kenya
46.48 … Reuben McCoy [Winslow], April 1, 2006, Atlanta