UConn freshman Jaidah Garrett from Absegami came a quarter of an inch from winning the Penn Relays long jump after PR’ing by more than five inches Friday at Franklin Field.
Garrett leaped 19-10 ¾, coming just 1 ¼ inches from becoming the 11th South Jersey woman to jump 20 feet.
Garrett’s previous PR was 19-5 ½ indoors in January in Cambridge, Mass. She had a legal wind of 0.8 meters per second.
Garrett led until St. John’s senior Cassandra Lemus-Sodji jumped 19-11 on her final attempt.
Garrett responded with two jumps beyond her previous PR – a 19-9 ½ and a 19-8 ¼ on her 5th and 6th jumps but couldn’t quite catch Sodji.
Her jump makes her the No. 17 freshman in NCAA Division 1 and No. 2 in the Big East, behind only Sodji, who jumped 20-2 ¼ last month in Tampa.
On her first two jumps, Garrett went 18-8 ½ and 18-9 ¼ before a foul. Her five legal jumps averaged 19-4 ¼, less than an inch off her lifetime best before Friday.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 