Ocean City’s Elaina Styer ran a huge hurdles PR and smashed the Stockton record again on a strong Day 1 of her first heptathlon Thursday at the TCNJ Invitational in Ewing.
Styer ran 14.23 with a legal 2.0 meters-per-second tailwind for a whopping 946 points, lowering her PR and school record from a 14.50 from the Osprey Open last week in Galloway Township.
Styer, 2nd in the pentathlon at indoor NCAA Division 3 Nationals, scord 3,058 points on Day 1 of the heptathlon at TCNJ. This is her outdoor multi.
After her 14.23, which is No. 5 in NCAA Division 3 this year, Styer scored 701 points with a 5-1 in the high jump, 587 points with a near-PR 35-8 in the shot [she threw 35-9 ¼ at indoor nationals] and finished Day 1 by running a big PR 25.69 in the 200. Her previous 200 PR was a 26.43 last week at Stockton.
On Friday, she’ll contest the long jump, javelin and 800. Her PRs are 18-5 ¾ and 2:19.96 in the long jump and 800. She threw the javelin twice in high school with a PR of 79-2 in a dual meet at Egg Harbor.
Lisa Chatman of Eastern Regional set the Stockton school record of 4,418 points at 2006 Penn Relays.
Thirty-one women in NCAA Division 3 have scored 5,000 points in the heptathlon. The NJAC web site lists Katie Holmgren of Montclair State as the NJAC record holder with 5,200 points in 1997 but doesn’t list a meet, and that mark doesn’t appear on the all-time Division 3 performance list and I can’t find any record of it ever happening. An article in the April 20, 1997, Star-Ledger says she set a school record of 4,398 at the Panther Invitational in Pittsburgh to qualify for NCAA D-3 Nationals, but she finished last night at Nationals with 4,031 points. The NJAC meet record is 4,231 points and she did not finish at Penn. Needless to say I’m skeptical of that 5,200-point mark.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 