Sixteen South Jersey men and women have earned spots in the NCAA Division 1 Outdoor Track Championships preliminary rounds.
The prelims are scheduled for May 22-25, with the East Region at the University of Kentucky in Lexington and the West Region at the Universiity of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The NCAA Championships June 5-8 at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Some 48 individuals and 24 relay teams per event in each region qualify for regionals. Incredibly, the official NCAA instructions do not say how many athletes per event qualify for nationals, saying only: “The qualifiers out of these two regions will compete in the 2024 NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships.” But I THINK the top 12 in each region per individual event advance to nationals. You’d think the NCAA might want to put that in their instructions? Maybe? Track is the best sport but honestly the people running it are idiots.
Anyway, here’s a look at the qualifiers for D-1 prelims. For links to the complete qualifier lists, click here.
East Regional
Women
Dennisha Page: Wilson grad now at Tennessee has blossomed into one of the top sprinters in the world in her first year at Tennessee after spending her first three years at Rutgers. Page is No. 28 in the world in the 100 at 11.10, No. 15 among Americans and No. 8 among collegians, and in the 200 she’s No. 11 in the world, No. 7 among U.S. women and No. 6 among collegians. Page will also run on Tennessee’s top-seeded 400-meter relay team, which is ranked 6th in the world at 42.42.
Halima Scott: Delaware senior Scott, who ran for Wilson while attending Camden Big Picture Learning Academy, ran 53.38 in the 400 to place 3rd in the Coastal Athletic Association Championships at Elon, N.C. Her lifetime best is 53.01 from last year’s CAA meet (when the CAA was the Colonial Athletic Association) is the Delaware school record. Scott and Page ran together at Wilson and are sisters.
Shelby Whetstone: Lenape’s Whetstone, a Rutgers senior, qualified for her first NCAA meet with a big PR of 2:05.81 at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich. That’s No. 2 in Rutgers history and 9th-fastest ever by a South Jersey woman.
Jailya Ash: Back in March, Ash, a UConn senior from Eastern, ran a lifetime-best 13.29, setting the Huskies school record. This will be Ash’s 2nd trip to NCAA prelims. She raced in the NCAA East prelims in 2022 in Bloomington, Ind., as well.
Aliya Garozzo: Paul VI graduate from Sicklerville set a UPenn school record when she ran 56.34 to win the Ivy League title earlier this month at Princeton. She’s the No. 10 in the East Regional and ranked 21st among U.S. women. The only South Jersey athletes to ever run faster are Rancocas Valley’s Tonya Lee [55.78 in 1996] and Winslow’s Krystal Cantey [56.21 in 2007]. Garozzo will also run on Penn’s 1,600-meter relay team, which is the No. 5 seed with its Ivy League-record 3:29.29 on the Quakers’ home track at the Penn Relays.
Claudine Smith: Atlantic City graduate, now a Rutgers senior, returns to NCAAs in the triple jump after competing in the 2021 East Regionals in Jacksonville. Smith jumped a season-best 41-6 in an early-season meet in Tampa, has a collegiate PR of 41-10 from an indoor meet at the Armory in February 2023 and a lifetime best of 42-2 from her win at the 2019 Meet of Champions at Northern Burlington (with no wind guage).
Fatimah Owens: A Towson senior from Millville, Owens qualified with a lifetime-best 171-5 in the discus when she placed 2nd at the Coastal Athletic Association meet at Elon, N.C., last weekend. That’s the best throw by a South Jersey woman since Sylvia Galarza – also from Millville – threw 174-2 in the 2016 USATF National Club Championships at Franklin Field, which was the final time she ever threw the disc, according to World Athletics.
Men
Austin Gabay: Gabay, a Duke junior from Cinnaminson, earned a top-20 seed in the 1,500 with a PR 3:40.73 at a home meet in Durham, N.C., last month. That’s 4th-fastest in South Jersey history. This is Gabay’s 4th trip to NCAAs, including two in cross country. He ran the 1,500 last May in East prelims in Jacksonville, Fla.
Bryce Tucker and Premier Wynn: We’ll list Tucker and Wynn together because they’re two of the fastest freshmen in NCAA Division 1 in the 400-meter hurdles, they were teammates at Pennsauken, they’re among the top Americans in the Under-20 division and they both PR’d this spring with times separated by 11-100ths of a second. Tucker, a freshman at Rutgers, won the Big Ten Conference title last week in 50.61 and Wynn, a freshman at Norfolk State, was 2nd in the MEAC Championships in 50.72.
Micah Wood: Another Rutgers intermediate hurdler, Rancocas Valley’s Wood ran a PR 51.12 in the prelims of the Big Ten Championships last weekend in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Noah Kriesman: When the indoor season began, the Cherry Hill East grad and Rutgers sophomore had a PR of 15-7 from the MAAC indoor Championships in February of 2023. He sat out the 2023 outdoor season and resurfaced at Rutgers, where he improved steadily culminating in a 17-3 ½ clearance in a meet in Columbia, S.C., in April, the best jump ever by a South Jersey alumni. That’s an improvement of 20 ½ inches since January.
Lucciano Pizarro: Cherokee grad at Penn State hit a shot put season-best 62-4 in a meet in Coral Gables, Fla., in April, which makes him the No. 14 seed at East prelims. Pizarro has a lifetime best 65-0 ¾ from last year’s Big Ten Championships in Bloomington, Ind.
Kevin Burr: In only his 2nd year throwing the javelin, Rancocas Valley’s Burr threw 225-0 twice this spring at Tennessee, making him the No. 2 freshman in the East Regional (behind Mississippi’s Jake Railey, who threw 228-1) and the No. 3 freshman in all of the NCAA.
West
Women
Tionna Tobias: Versatile Winslow graduate, now a senior at Iowa, qualified for NCAA prelims in both the long jump and hurdles. She ran 13.18 in March in Gainesville and long jumped 21-4 ¼ at the same meet. Tobias placed 9th in the long jump at indoor NCAAs in March in Boston. She competed in the heptathlon last year at NCAAs after winning the Big 10 Championships but did not contest any multi-events this spring. Tobias is also an alternate on Iowa’s 400-meter relay team, which has run 44.07 this year.
Leah Howard: Like Burr, Texas Tech’s Howard is one of the top freshman javelin throwers in the country. Howard, another Millville graduate, PR’d at 164-4 earlier this month at the Big 12 Championships in Waco, Texas, and she’s 5th among freshmen in the West Regional and 9th in NCAA Division 1.