The Rowan men, with four South Jersey sprinters, ran the fastest 800-meter relay in college track history and the 6th-fastest in world history.
It’s the fastest time ever run on U.S. soil in an indoor meet. It’s 2nd-fastest in U.S. history and fastest in 35 years.
Eli Hendricks from Penns Grove, Julian Conigliaro from Delsea, Evan Corcoran from Kingsway and Rajhan Dixon from Eastern ran 1:23.59 at the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships at the Ott Center. Corcoran split 20.76 and Dixon 20.74.
Rowan broke the all-time college record of 1:24.70 set by Penn State in State College in 2013. They smashed their own Division 3 record of 1:25.45 that they set at this meet on the same track last year with Dixon, Hendricks, Masai Byrd of Rancocas Valley and Robert McKinney of Highland.
Their time is 2nd-fastest in U.S. history behind a national team that ran a then world-record 1:22.71 in Glasgow in a U.S.-Britain dual meet on March 3, 1991, with Thomas Jefferson, Raymond Pierre, Antonio McKay and Kevin Little in the lineup.
The fastest previous time run indoors on U.S. soil was a 1:24.37 by Archbishop Carroll High of Washington, D.C., at The Track at New Balance in Boston this past March.
Rowan also ran below the NCAA Division 3 outdoor record of 1:25.04 set by the Profs last year at the Penn Relays with Hendricks, Conigliaro, McKinney and Dixon.
Dixon and Corcoran were not even sheduled to be on the 4-by-2 on Day 1 of the NJAC meet. But when Sunday’s day 2 was postponed until Friday it allowed them join the team without worrying about too many races over two days.
From the World Athletics database, here are the top-10 times ever run. Remember, for a team to be eligible for these lists all four runners must be citizens of the same country.
1:22.11 … Great Britain, March 3, 1991, Glasgow
1:22.32 … Italy, Feb. 11, 1984, Torino, Italy
1:22.71 … United States, March 3, 1991, Glasgow
1:23.04 … Russia, Jan. 30, 1993, Glasgow
1:23.51 … TV Wattenscheid 01 [Germany], Feb. 23, 2014, Leipzig
1:23.59 … Rowan [U.S.], Feb. 21, Philadelphia
1:23.71 … TJ Dukla Praha [Czech Republic], Feb. 23, 2025, Ostrava
1:23.97 … Scarborough Optimist [Canada], Feb. 26, 1983, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
1:24.00 … France, Feb. 6, 1988, Glasgow
1:24.02 … Birchfield [Great Britain], Jan. 27, 2004, Birmingham, Great Britain