From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

Ajani Dwyer, a Penn State freshman from Washington Township, ran the 4th-fastest 200 in NCAA Division 1 Saturday at the Ott Center.

Ott won the 200 at the Penn 10 Elite in 20.65, the fastest time ever recorded indoors by a South Jersey native. The previous fastest was a 20.73 by Edgewood graduate and Olympic gold medalist Dennis Mitchell competing for Florida at the 1988 NCAA Championships in Oklahoma City.

It’s the 2nd-fastest indoor time on record by a New Jersey native, behind only a 20.30 by Olympian Cheickna Traore, who graduated from Innovation High School in Jersey City and competed for Snyder High, also of Jersey City. He began his college career at Ramapo and shattered every Division 3 sprinting record, then did a grad season at Penn State, where he ran 20.30 indoors and won multiple NCAA Division 1 titles.

Including outdoor times, Dwyer’s 20.65 is 9th-fastest in New Jersey history and fastest in 15 years by a South Jersey sprinter, since Deptford’s Bruce Owens from Rutgers ran 20.64 at NCAA East Region Prelims in Greensboro, N.C.

This was Dwyer’s first collegiate 200. His indoor 200 PR was 21.25 from Ocean Breeze this past February. He ran 20.86 at Group 4 Sectionals at Pennsauken last spring, but that was without a wind guage. He never ran a wind-legal 200 outdoors last spring.

Dwyer’s time is No. 3 in Penn State history behind Traore and Terrance Laird of Coatesville, who ran 20.56 at the 2018 Big Ten Championships in Geneva, Ohio. He went on to run 19.81 with legal wind for LSU in the spring of 2021, which is No. 18 in U.S. history, and was an Olympic Trials finalist in the 200.

Dwyer ran unpressed, winning by four meters over senior teammate Damoy Allen, who ran 21.02.

Ahead of Dwyer on the 2025 NCAA list are Kentucky junior Carl Makarawu [20.55 in Lubbock, Texas, last weekend], Auburn senior Makanakaishe Charamba [20.55 in Clemson, S.C., this weekend] and USC junior Max Thomas [20.60 in Lubbock this weekend].

Dwyer on Saturday also ran 6.58 in the 60 prelims and 6.57 in the final, just 2-100ths off his PR of 6.55 from last month, which is also No. 4 in NCAA Division 1.