What a race by Timber Creek junior Timothy Whitaker, who ran a more than six-second 800 PR at the South Jersey Invitational Friday at Delsea.
Whitaker won the 800 in 1:56.16, leading Gloucester senior Marcus Flagg and Gloucester senior Zachary Fayer to big PRs of 1:57.54 and 1:58.85 as well,
Whitaker, Flagg and Fayer are now ranked No. 1, 2 and 6 in South Jersey this year. Whitaker is No. 11 in New Jersey and the No. 3 underclassman.
Whitaker’s previous PR was a 2:02.37 indoors in December at the Ott Center, and his previous outdoor PR was a 2:06.75 at Cherokee last May. His time is No. 2 all-time by a Timber Creek half-miler, only 8-100ths of a second off Joshua Thaler’s 1:56.08 at the 2021 Meet of Champions at South Plainfield.
Whittaker’s time makes him 2nd-fastest this year in New Jersey Group 3, behind only Brendan McNamara of Old Tappan, who ran 1:54.66 last week in Englewood Cliffs.
Flagg dropped his PR 1 ½ seconds from 1:58.94 from last year’s outdoor state Group 1 meet in Somerset, and Fayer dropped nearly four seconds from 2:02.74 indoors in January at the Bubble. Flagg’s time is a school record, breaking the mark of 1:59.23 set last spring by Yasir Logan at South Jersey Group 2 Sectionals at Delsea. Flagg is also No. 2 in New Jersey Group 2, behind only David Edokpolar of Shabazz, who ran 1:56.99 last week in Montclair.
Fayer is the fastest Audubon half-miler since another Zachary, Zachary Williams, ran 1:57.85 at the 2021 Camden County Championships at Haddon Township. His time is 2nd-fastest in New Jersey this year by a Group 1 runner, behind Josh Crawford’s 1:58.33 at the Salem County Championships last week at Pennsville.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 