Double winners Ma’Syiah Brawner and Jasmine Jackson led the Winslow girls to one of the greatest performances in New Jersey track history this weekend at the South Jersey Group 3 Championships at Delsea.
Brawner, a junior, won the high jump and triple jump and placed 2nd in the hurdles and long jump, and Jackson won the high hurdles with one of the fastest times in state history as well as the intermediates, placed 2nd in the 200 and ran on the winning 4-by-4.
That duo scored 64 points, and Winslow piled up 175 total points, most ever in any group in any South Jersey sectional meet. The previous record was Haddonfield’s 154 points in Group 2 in 2023. The previou Group 3 record was Winslow’s 148 ¼ in 2013.
Winslow scored in every event other than the 1,600, 3,200 and javelin, won all three relays and scored at least 10 points in 10 of 18 events.
The meet was held Saturday and Sunday after rain postponed Friday’s events. Saturday’s schedule was held as schedule, so Friday’s events were run on Sunday. Winslow surpassed Haddonfield’s record of 154 points with three events to go, reaching 155 with a 2-5 finish in the 100.
The title is Winslow’s 11th in the last 12 years. They won eight straight from 2013 through 2021, there was no meet in 2020, and they’ve now won three straight since 2023. Including two championships in the 1980s as Edgewood, the school has won 16 sectionaltitles overall. Only Haddonfield [23], Columbia [17] and Metuchen [17] have won more in state history.
It was a historic performance by Winslow not just in terms of total points scored but in terms of performance.
Brawner won the high jump at 5-4 and triple jump at 39-10 – just six inches of Sophia Curtis’s year-old meet record – and long jumped 19-0 ½ and placed 2nd to Jaidah Garrett of Absegami, whose 19-3 ½ broke the meet record of 19-2 ½ set by Winslow’s Gabrielle Bennett in 2015.
Jackson ran an otherworldly 13.72 to win the hurdles, well under the meet record of 13.91 set by Central Regional’s Samantha Jensen in 2011 (the program stupidly lists a hand-timed 13.9 by Oakcrest’s Nicole Hill as the meet record and also spells her name wrong). Her performance was wind-aided at 3.4 but is 14th-fastest in any conditions in state history and 3rd-fastest by a freshman. Jackson also won the intermediates in 1:02.46 and ran 24.31 for 2nd to Ryan Jennings in the 200. All three of her marks were PRs.
Sophomore Cinniya Robinson won the 400 in 56.24, leading a 1-2-3 Winslow sweep, and placed 3rd in the intermediate hurdles in 1:04.04.
Junior Olivia Okaro also had a huge weekend, running 11.87, 24.66 and 56.91 for 2nd in the 200 and 3rd in the 100 and 400.
And sophomore Skye Seamon placed 2nd in that 400 sweep in 56.46 and 5th in the 200 in 24.91.
Out in the field, senior Brook-lynn Roberts placed 2nd in the discus with a big season-best 146-9 and was also 3rd in the shot at 40-2 ¼.
Als, junior Leeya Joseph placed 3rd in the long jump at 18-6 and 5th in the 100 in 12.29, sophomore Tristan Hughes ran 1:04.64 for 4th in the intermediates, junior Chantina Walker jumped 17-3 ¾ for 6th, senior Ava Millner ran a huge PR 2:15.77 for 4th in a very fast 800 and junior Nyla Williams cleared 9-0 and placed 4th in the pole vault.
Winslow won the 400-meter relay in 48.06 with Amariah Arango, Seamon, Walker and Joseph, the 4-by-4 ran 3:54.56 with Adaiah Arango, Amariah Arango, Jackson and Hughes, and the 4-by-8 in 9:17.50 with the Arangos joined by Hughes and Millner.
Jennings won the 100 in 11.32, breaking her own meet record of 11.33 from last year, and the 200 in 23.81, snapping the meet record of 23.85 set in 2017 by Winslow’s Shakirah Dancy.
Moorestown freshman Hope Edwards won a very fast and deep 800 in 2:14.39, fastst this year by a New Jersey 9th-grader and fastest by any South Jersey freshman since Washington Township’s Kami Joi Hickson ran 2:12.04 in 2017. Also under 2:18 were Ocean City sophomore Carly Godfrey [2:14.43], Moorestown freshman Peyton Derer [2:14.83], Winslow senior Ava Millner [2:15.77], Absegami junior Samia Ghazaz [2:17.13], Mainland junior Madison Taylor [2:17.44] and Winslow freshman Amariah Arango [2:17.64].
Ocean City senior Maeve Smith won the 1,600 in 4:58.68 and the 3,200 in 11:05.30.
We wrote on Saturday about Hannah Nuhfer’s South Jersey record of 47-9 in the shot put, and she came back Sunday and won the discus at 157-6. Absegami senior Josephine Buxton won the javelin [130-8] and Moorestown senior Hannah Byrd-Leitner won the pole vault [12-0],
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 