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: Alton Curtis, Millville
Millville sophomore Alton Curtis proved himself one of the more versatile athletes in South Jersey this spring.
Start with the 110-meter hurdles. Curtis was the top sophomore in New Jersey this spring with his 14.80 PR in the trials of the Group 4 sectionals at Pennsauken. He just missed placing in the final – he placed 7th, 6-100ths of a second out of 6th – but he was the top sophomore in the race, and his 14.80 was fastest by a Cumberland County sophomore since Millville’s Azim Smith ran 14.25 at the 2000 Meet of Champions in South Plainfield.
But Curtis tried a little bit of everything this spring. At the Mustang Pentathlon at Mainland Regional, he finished first with 3,048 points, high jumping 5-8, long jumping 20-1, pole vaulting 10-6, throwing the shot 35-2 ½ and running 1,500 meters in 5:08.00.
But his main event is the 110 highs, and he was the top soph at the South Jersey Elite [15.19], he placed 2nd to senior teammate Isaac Roberts in the Cumberland County Championships at Bridgeton with a 15.71 (Millville swept, with sophomore Amir Sweazie 3rd) and then he was 5th at the Cape-Atlantic Meet at Bridgeton in 15.62 and again the top sophomore. He also won the pole vault at the Cumberland County meet.
Indoors, Curtis ran as fast as 7.83 and placed 5th in the state Group 4 meet at the Bubble and was the top sophomore. He was the No. 2 soph in the state [Chad Stone of St. Peter’s Prep ran 7.76], and his 7.83 was 2nd-fastest by a South Jersey soph in the last 20 years, behind only national champion Sincere Rhea of St. Augustine, who ran 7.70 at 2017 Easterns at the Armory and won Armory Nationals two years later.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 