A small but talented group of South Jersey athletes is headed for Eugene, Ore., to compete at USATF Under-20 Championships this week at Hayward Field.
Riverside’s Jamir Brown, Northern Burlington’s Liliah Gordon and Nyla Jones and Ryan Jennings of Timber Creek are entered, but the USATF entry platform is such a mess it’s tough to tell if any other South Jersey athletes are competing. If I missed you, lemme know!
Athletes are eligible for Under-20s if they turn 20 after Dec. 31.
The meet is generally a qualifier for Pan Am or World Under-20s, but the U.S. has already announced that it won’t be sending a contingent to this year’s Pan Am Under 20 Championships in Villavicencio, Colombia, because of safety concerns.
Brown is entered in the 110-meter hurdles after setting an NCAA Division 3 record of 13.60 in the prelims at the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships in Ewing. He won the NCAA Division 3 title in his only year at Rowan.
Gordon is entered in the 3,000 and 5,000. She’s got an official 3,000 PR of 9:45.19 from last year’s Glenn Loucks Games at White Plains (N.Y.) High School, which happens to be my alma mater (go Tigers!), although she came through 3K at the indoor Meet of Champions at Ocean Breeze in 9:39.04 on her way to the victory. Gordon’s 5,000 PR is 16:48.89 from Boston Nationals in March. That’s the indoor state record. Megan Lacy of Cherokee set the South Jersey outdoor record of 16:50.75 in a meet at Princeton in 2011.
Jones is coming off a tremendous freshman year at Rowan and set a meet record and PR of 1:00.42 when she won the 400-meter hurdles at the NJAC meet in Ewing, She added All-America honors with a 5th-place finish at the NCAA Division 3 Championships in Geneva, Ohio.
And Jennings is entered in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes after running wind-legal 11.35 and 23.46 this spring. She’s No. 2 in state history in the 100 and No. 6 in the 200.
The men’s high hurdles is Friday, with trials at 4:44 p.m. and the final at 6 p.m. The women’s 5,000 is the first final of Day 1 at 9:15 a.m. Thursday, and the 3,000 final is the last women’s final at 6:05 p.m. Friday. The women’s 100 is Thursday, with trials at 4:13 p.m. and the final at 6:11 p.m., and the 200 is 4:08 p.m. Friday with the final at 5:45 p.m.
I would love to provide a list of all-time South Jersey Under-20 [formerly Junior Nationals] winners, but the USATF is a disgrace when it comes to its history. They just give you nothing. No all-time winners, no all-time performance list, no previous results, no meet records. They are literally the worst. If any web site on Earth needs to be revamped it’s USATF’s.
From unearthing old results from various sources I can tell you the last South Jersey athletes to win USATF Junior titles are Kingsway’s Ryan Allen in the 10,000-meter walk in 2022 and 2023 and before that Florence’s Curtis Thompson in the javelin in 2014 and 2015 and Bridgeton’s Braheme Days Jr. in the shot put in 2014. Most searches from before the last few years wind up with dead links or incomplete results. I can’t find the last South Jersey woman to win a U.S. junior title but I’ll keep looking!
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 