Ocean City’s Elaina Syyer turned into a fantastic performance on Day 1 of the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships at the Ott Center.
Styer, a sophomore at Stockton, won the one-day five-event pentathlon with a whopping 3,628 points. She won by over 700 points.
Styer had the top mark in all five events, which were contested over about 4 1/2 hours, and she PR’d in four of them, recording an indoor PR in the 5th.
Styer opened up with a personal-best 9.09 in the 60-meter hurdles, good for 891 points. She didn’t contest the open hurdles, but that 9.09 would have been the 2nd-fastest qualifying time for Sunday’s final. Her previous PR was a 9.14 in a meet in Rochester last month.
Up next was the high jump and Styer PR’d again with a 5-5 1/4 clearance on her 1st attempt. The high jump earned Styer 806 points.
Then it was off to the shot put, where she threw 31-10 1/4 and 31-5 1/4 on her first two attempts before a 33-8 PR on her final throw that was worth 546 points. Her previous PR was a 31-11 1/2 in a meet at Lehigh in December.
The long jump is one of Styer’s strongest events – she jumped 17-9 at Ocean City and was 4th at Group 3 states in the spring of 2023 – and on her 2nd of three attempts she hit 17-1 1/4, an indoor lifetime best. Her previous indoor PR was a 17-0 3/4 in a meet last week at the same facility. The 17-1 1/4 was worth 617 points.
In the concluding 800, Styer ran another PR with a 2:24.18, closing in 34.07 over her final 200. She picked up 768 points in the 800. Her previous 800 PR was 2:25.03 in a multi last February at Ithaca as a freshman at Cornell.
Styer is entered in the high jump on Sunday and is also listed in Stockton’s 4-by-4 lineup.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 