Glassboro High’s Dallas Hohney blazed a huge PR in the 800 Saturday, PR’ing by a staggering 5 1/2 seconds and recording the 3rd-fastest time in Rider history.
Would you believe 1:50.71?
Unreal performance! Nobody PR’s by 5 1/2 seconds in the 800!
Hohney placed 2nd at the Penn Select at the Ott Center in West Philly, finishing behind only Princeton graduate and two-time Ivy League champion Russell Dinkins, a 1:48.10 half-miler who raced at the U.S. Championships last spring.
Hohney is an incredible story.
He never ran an 800 in high school, competed briefly for Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C., then resurfaced at Rider this time last year. He ran 1:57.46 in March in what looks like his first 800 ever and also ran 48.35 indoors.
In the spring, he lowered his 400 time to 48.15 in a home meeet and his 800 to 1:56.20 at a meet at Franklin Field.
On Saturday, he raced for the first time since IC4As in May in Fairfax and ran a mind-boggling race in his 4th lifetime 800 and – get this – his first indoor 800 ever.
On Saturday, Hohney was out in 26.0 and came through the 400 in 53.15 and the 600 in 1:21.84 before closing in 28.88. DInkins won the race in 1:50.38.
Hohney’s time trails only Tamrat Snyder of Gaithersburg, Md., and Jonathan Jackson of Roselle on the all-time Rider list. Snyder ran 1:49.32 in a meet in Nashviulle in 2023 and Jackson ran 1:50.53 in 2015 at the Armory.
Snyder holds the Rider outdoor record at 1:47.70, but only five other Rider half-milers have gone faster outdoors.
Hohney’s time is 9th-fastest in NCAA Division 1 and No. 1 – by almost eight seconds – in the Metro Atlantic Conference.
Rancocas Valley’s Ian Moore was 3rd in the race in 1:51.11, which moved him up to 7th on the all-time Monmouth performance list.
Other South Jersey runners in the 800 field were St. Joe grad student Jayden Green from Washington Township [5th in 1:52.78], St. Joe’s senior Josh Thaler from Timber Creeek [6th in 1:54.06], Monmouths senior Stone Caraccio from Kingsway [8th in 1:54.43], Rutgers freshman Robert Poplau from Cherokee [9th in 1:54.57], Monmouth sophomore Conor Jacob from Cherokee [14th in 1:56.23].
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 