South Jersey will be well represented in the 3,200-meter relays next weekend at the Penn Relays.

Six boys teams and four girls teams will be racing for spots in the Championship of America race. The Penn Relays announced the high school relay acceptances on Monday.

Teams had until midnight Sunday to post qualifying times. Penn accepts the top 35 entries in both large-school and small-school divisions.

The 124th annual Penn Relays is scheduled for April 26-28 at Franklin Field on the University of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia.

The girls 4-by-800s are scheduled for that Thursday morning starting at 10:30 a.m. and the Championship of America race, which will include the 12 fastest teams from the four races, goes off at 1:05 p.m. Friday.

The boys 4-by-800s are scheduled for Friday morning starting at 9:20 a.m. and the Championship of America race is 4:05 p.m. Saturday.

The list of qualifiers includes a lot of familiar names — Haddonfield, Seneca and Lenape seem to always race at Penn. But for Burlington Township, this will be the first visit for an invitational relay in school history.

No South Jersey schools made the distance medley fields.

Here’s who’s racing the 4x8s, along with their qualifying time:

Boys 3,200-Meter Relays
Large-School
Rancocas Valley [7:57.28 indoors]
Kingsway [8:03.11 indoors]

Small-School
Haddonfield [8:01.64 indoors]
Cinnaminson [8:08.72]
Burlington Twp. [8:10.25]
Camden Catholic [8:02.65]

Girls 3,200-Meter Relays
Large-School
Lenape [9:47.71]

Small-School
Seneca [9:32.10]
Highland [9:45.55]
Haddonfield [9:47.10 indoors]

The Lenape girls results are finally available, and it looks like Seneca’s 3,200-meter relay team ran a likely Penn qualifier in winning the meet at the inaugural meet in Mount Laurel.

Seneca ran 9:32.10, fastest in South Jersey this year, to win the event. Although the Penn qualifiers haven’t been released yet, they should be any minute, and the 9:32 should be good enough to get the Golden Eagles into the Penn.

Carley Tool led off for Seneca with a 2:26, followed by Kayla Hay (2:22), Grayce Heinemann (2:20) and Sydny Warner (2:20).

The 124th annual Penn Relays is scheduled for April 26-28 at Franklin Field on the University of Pennsylvania campus in West Philadelphia.

The four girls 4-by-800s are scheduled for that Thursday morning starting at 10:30 a.m. and the Championship of America race, which will include the 12 fastest teams from the four races, goes off at 1:05 p.m. Friday.

For Seneca, this is the 10th time in the last 11 years they’ve gone under 10 minutes in the 4-by-8, which is a remarkable record of consistency for coach Karen O’Neil’s middle-distance crew.

It’s also the fourth straight year they’ve gone under 9:40.

2008 – 9:20.55
2009 – 9:37.14
2010 – 9:53.43
2011 – —
2012 – 9:55.86
2013 – 9:30.93
2014 – 9:53.87
2015 – 9:33.08
2016 – 9:23.53
2017 – 9:16.57
2018 – 9:32.10

Rowan senior Jeffrey Jon Tucker broke a 36-year-old Rowan University high jump record Saturday, clearing 7-1 1/2 at the Coach Pollard Invitational at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa.

Tucker, who set his previous PR of 7-0 1/2 at a meet in Winston-Salem, N.C., in February of 2015, broke the school record of 7-0 3/4 set by Princeton High graduate Pete Sharpless in 1982, when the school was known as Glassboro State. He also broke the meet record of 6-11 3/4 set in 2014 by Adeolu Adesida of nearby Lehigh.

His previous outdoor PR was 6-11 1/2 in April of 2016 at a meet in Baltimore.

Tucker, a graduate of Eastern High School, cleared 6-6 1/2 and 6-8 1/2 on his first attempts. Tucker and senior teammate Harrison Escoffery were the only jumpers over 6-8 1/2.

Tucker needed all three attempts to clear 6-10 1/2 but earned the win when Escoffery missed three tries at 6-10 1/2.

Tucker then had the bar moved up to 7-1 1/2 and cleared it on his first attempt, breaking the school and meet records. He took two attempts at 7-2 1/2 before calling it a day and passing on his final try.

The clearance moves Tucker into the No. 23 spot on the 2018 U.S. list. The South Jersey alumni record of 7-5 3/4 was set in 1989 by Delran graduate Darren Burton in Ylivieska, Finland.

Tucker is a six-time All-America in the high jump and long jump.

Camden Catholic’s 3,200-meter relay team ran a South Jersey No. 1 8:02.65 for a hopeful Penn Relays qualifier Saturday at the College of New Jersey High School Invitational.

Camden Catholic won the race by nearly 10 seconds over Jackson Memorial. Only Voorhees, with a 7:59.72 at the Holmdel Twilight Meet last week, and Westfield, with an 8:02.00 at the Husky Relays Saturday at Matawan, have run faster this year among New Jersey schools.

There is no set time to qualify for Penn. The top 35 small schools and top 35 large schools are accepted, and the top 12 overall times advance to the Championship of America race. Camden Catholic, with a male enrollment below 525, would be contending for a spot in two-race small-school field.

The four 4-by-800s are scheduled for Friday morning starting at 9:20 a.m. and the Championship of America race is 4:05 p.m. Saturday. The 123rd annual Penn Relays is scheduled for April 26-28 at Franklin Field in West Philadelphia.

The Penn Relays distance medley and 3,200-meter relay qualifiers will be announced Monday morning.

Bloomfield freshman Daveigh Brooks, a Burlington City graduate, had a tremendous day at the Coach Pollard Invitational at Moravian College in Bethlehem Saturday.

Brooks placed third in the 400 with a big personal-best time of 48.52. Brooks was the top freshman in the race and finished behind only Ithaca’s Dan Harden-Marshall (48.19) and Nazareth’s Nick LaBarbera (48.43).

Brooks’ previous PR was a 48.99 two weeks ago in a meet at Ramapo. His fastest 400 in high school was a 48.98 to win the 2016 state Group 1 title at Egg Harbor.

Brooks also placed sixth out of 38 runners in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, an event he had not run since the 2016 BCSL Divisional Meet at Northern Burlington. Despite not running the intermediates in two years, he ran 55.98. His previous PR was a 58.55 from the BCSL meet, when he ran second to Kelvin Harmon of Palmyra.

And Brooks ran leadoff on Bloomfield’s winning 1,600-meter relay team, which clocked 3:16.69 and nearly broke the meet record of 3:16.38, set by East Stroudsburg in 2014.

The second leg on that relay team was handled by Willingboro graduate Tyler Davidson, a Bloomfield sophomore and a state champion in the 400IH for the Chimeras in 2016. Davidson did not run the intermediates at Moravian Saturday.

Sincere Rhea, the Meet of Champions winner indoors in the 55 hurdles, is off and running this spring. Rhea ran his first open high hurdles race this weekend at the Eighth Annual Bensalem (Pa.) Invitational and PR’d twice in the 110 highs.

Rhea, a St. Augustine junior, ran a personal-best 14.47 to lead all qualifiers in the prelims and then won the final in 14.45. Coming into the race, Rhea’s PR was 14.99 from his freshman year state Parochial A meet at Egg Harbor, when he placed fifth.

Rhea’s time is No. 1 in New Jersey so far this spring. He ranked ran 7.35 indoors, which ranked 14th nationally, according to the Milesplit database.

Rhea won by a whopping six meters over Nasan Robbins of Pennsbury High of Fairless Hills, Pa., who was second in 15.33.

The Camden boys ran 1:30.47 to win the 800-meter relay Friday evening at the Temple Twilight Invitational at the Don & Shelly Boyce track at Temple University in North Philly.

Camden edged out Roman Catholic of Philadelphia by about half a second. The Panthers’ time is No. 1 in New Jersey this year and Camden’s fastest 4-by-200 in at least 10 years.

The official results from Temple don’t list relay members, so if anybody knows who ran for Camden, please post the names in the comments section. We’d love to report them along with the news of the N.J. #1 time for 2018.

Camden also ran 43.11 for the 400-meter relay, also No. 1 in New Jersey this year in the early going.