Rowan senior Shamar Love from Bridgeton turned in a historic sprint double Saturday.
Love led all qualifiers in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes at the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships at The College of New Jersey in Ewing.
Love ran 10.46 in the 100 trials with a legal 1.1 meters-per-second tailwind, breaking the Rowan school record of 10.56 set by Sterling graduate Jah’mere Beasley at the 2023 NJAC Championships in Mahwah. His time is No. 18 in NCAA Division 3 this year and just 4-100ths outside the top 10.
He led all qualifiers in the 200 with a 21.18, which is No. 14 in Division 3 athis year and No. 2 in Rowan history behind Beasley’s 20.91at NCAA Division 3 Nationals in Geneva, Ohio, in 2022.
Love is now one of only six sprinters in NCAA Division 3 who has run sub-10.50 and sub-21.20 this year. The others are Sam Blaskowski of Wisconsin-La Crosse [10.09, 20.33], Dylan Doss of Illinois College [10.44, 20.85], Kevin Arthur of St. John’s Minnesota [10.32, 21.04], Lucas Fadden of Grinnell [10.42, 21.10] and Jahmal Jones of Ferrum [10.27, 21.11].
Love never broke 11 or 24 seconds in high school. He began his college career at Westminster before arriving in Glassboro in time for the 2023 indoor season. That spring he won his 1st All-America honor on Rowan’s 2nd-place 4-by-1 team at NCAA Division 3 nationals in Rochester and last spring he won his 2nd when Rowan took 5th at nationals in Myrtle Beach.
Rowan has had 10 sprinters run sub-10.80 with legal wind, and six of them are currently on the team. Similarly, they’ve had 15 sprinters run sub-21.80 and six of them are currently on the team. Some 16 of 25 qualifiers in the 100, 200 and 400 are from Rowan.
Love is one of a bottomless well of Rowan sprinters from South Jersey who had huge days Saturday on Day 1 of the NJAC meet:
➡️ Evan Corcoran, Jr. [Kingsway]: Corcoran ran 21.39 to qualify for the 100 final. That’s 5th-fastest in Rowan history and drops his PR from 21.59 from last spring in Waco, Texas. He also advanced in the 100 with a PR 10.61, 3rd-fastest in school history behind Love and Beasley. His previous PR was 10.63 from last spring at Selinsgrove, Pa.
➡️ Robert McKinney, Sr. [Highland]: McKinney won his 200 heat in 21.45. He’s No. 3 in Rowan history with his 21.29 from a meet last month in Atlanta. He also ran 10.72, just off his PR of 10.71 from Atlanta.
➡️ Dominic George, Sr. [Cheltenham, Pa.]: George ran two PRs and advanced to both finals with a 21.56 and a 10.79. His previous PRs were 21.74 from last weekend and 10.85 from last month. He didn’t run sub-22 until March and he didn’t run sub-11 until two weeks ago.
➡️ Julian Conigliarto, Fr. [Delsea]: PR’d with an 10.84 to advance to the 100 final and ran sub-22 in the 200 at 21.92 but missed advancing by 8-100ths of a second.
➡️ James Coleman, Sr. [Audubon]: Advanced in both the 200 [21.74] and 400 [48.90]. Also qualifying for the final in the 400: Freshman Luke Halbruner from Ocean City [48.43], freshman Lowrentzky Ambroise [48.49], junior Jarquil Young from Sterling [49.05] and senior Samael Milevoix [49.21].
➡️ A few other top Rowan sprinters didn’t compete Saturday. Freshman Rajahn Dixon from Eastern, coming off an injury layoff, was up the road at Princeton and ran 21.62 in the 200 at the Larry Ellis Invitational, Rancocas Valley’s Masai Byrd [10.77, 22.01] didn’t compete and sophomore Eli Hendricks from Penns Grove [10.63, 21.34] was also out Saturday.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 