Over the next few weeks, we’ll spotlight 30 athletes who excelled during the outdoor track season that we didn’t have a chance to write about extensively. We’d love to write about every athlete in South Jersey, but that’s not practical. But we will try to spotlight some who may have gotten overlooked over the past few months. We apologize in advance if we don’t get to you or your son or daughter or an athlete you coach.
Today: Jonnelle Lewis, Kingsway
When you’re a sprinter in South Jersey, it’s easy to get overlooked since there’s just so much talent and so much depth. But Lewis had an outstanding junior year for Kingsway, with PRs of 11.90 and 24.80.
Lewis was one of only nine sprinters in New Jersey to run sub-12, sub-25 and sub-59 this year and one of four in South Jersey, along with Timber Creek’s Naylah Jones, Pennsauken’s Sianni Wynn and Winslow’s Olivia Okaro. That’s very good company.
Lewis PR’d with an 11.90 and 24.80 at Group 4 sectionals and 58.24 at the Gloucester County Championships. She’s the No. 3 returner in South Jersey in the 100 (behind Ryan Jennings and Wynn), No. 6 in the 200 and No. 14 in the 400 (which she only ran three times).
Lewis is Kingsway’s fastest sprinter at 100 or 200 meters since 1984 and Denise Liles, who was a member of the U.S. Under-20 national team that raced at World Juniors (now World Under-20’s). She’s the Dragons’ fastest at 400 meters since Thailia Cooper, who ran 56.24 to win the 2013 state Group 3 meet.
At sectionals, Lewis was joined by juniors Camryn Stanard and Naveya Hall and senior Kay Wiscount on the 2nd-place 4-by-4, which ran 3:59.57, and on the 5th-place 4-by-1, which also included sophomores Kennedy Braithwaite, Lariah Miles and Alicia Criscitello and ran 49.86.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 