Desi Stroud, a sophomore at Holy Family from Mays Landing, opened the spring season with an outdoor long jump PR and the No. 2 mark in school history.
Stroud, placed 2nd to teammate Odane Smith with a 23-4 ¾ jump at the Stockton Invite in Galloway Township, surpassing his outdoor PR of 22-1 ¼ from 2023 South Jersey Group 4 sectionals at Pennsauken.
Smith, a senior from Edwin Allen in Frankfield, Jamaica, won with a 23-5 ½. He’s the school record holder outdoors with a 23-5 ¾ at the Doc Jopson Invitational in Bridgewater, Va., last March (that mark – 7.16 meters – is listed incorrectly as 23-6 in the results but 23-5 ¾ in the record section of Holy Family’s web site).
So Stroud was only one inch from Smith’s school record.
Javon Bowen, a current Holy Family junior from Jamaica College in Kingston, set the indoor school record of 24-0 ¾ at the East Coast Conference Championships at Ocean Breeze last month. Smith jumped 23-8 in the same meet, and Stroud jumped a lifetime-best 23-8 ¾ indoors at the Fastrack National Invite at Ocean Breeze in February 2024. Bowen did not compete Saturday at Stockton.
Stroud also has a triple jump PR of 46-5 ¼ and he ran on the school-record 800-meter relay team that ran 1:29.06 at the Penn Relays last year.
At Atlantic County Tech Stroud
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 