Just three days after racing at Foot Locker Nationals, Northern Burlington junior Liliah Gordon took advantage of her cross country fitness and opened her indoor season with the 3rd-fastest time in the U.S. in the 3,200.

Gordon ran 10:56.44 Tuesday night in the SJTCA #2 meet at the Bubble in Toms River. She ran unpressed, finishing nearly a minute and a half ahead of the field

The only faster times this year according to the MileSplit database are 10:54.91 by Emma Brooke Levering of Homewood (Ala.) High in a meet in Birmingham and 10:56.34 by Abigail Anstett of Georgetown Visitation Preparatory in Washington, D.C., in a meet in Alexandria, Va.

Gordon’s indoor PR is 10:38.20 from last year’s Meet of Champions at Ocean Breeze. That’s No. 6 in South Jersey history and No. 18 in state history. It was also No. 4 nationally by a sophomore.

Moorestown junior Noelia Reyes placed 2nd in an indoor-PR 12:21.29.

Former Shawnee runner Aaron Totten-Lancaster placed 5th Saturday in the 45-49 age group at the USATF Masters Championships.

The 48-year-old Totten-Lancaster, racing for the Garden State Track Club, ran 35:32.2 over 10K at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee, Fla.

At Shawnee, Totten-Lancaster placed 5th at the 1992 state Group 4 meet at Holmdel in 16:44 and then was 11th in the 1992 Meet of Champions on the same course in 16:34. He won the County Open 3,200 three straight years.

Totten-Lancaster served in the Army as a squad automatic weapons gunner in Company A, 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment and was awarded the Silver Star for “conspicious gallantry and intrepidity in action” for his actions in combat in Afghanistan in March 2002.

 

Egg Harbor’s Anne Rutledge posted the 6th-highest pentathlon score in Monmouth history this weekend at Fast Times at Lehigh at Rauch Fieldhouse in Bethlehem.

Rutledge scored 3,185 points and placed 2nd to Lehigh’s Emma Sanford, who won with 3,329 points. Ruledge’s previous PR was a 3,091 this past February at the Colonial Athletic Association Championships in Virginia Beach.

Four of the top six pentathlon scores in Monmouth history were recorded by South Jersey athletes. Ashley Huffman, who attended Ward Melville High in East Setauket, N.Y., set the school record of 3,919 in 2007. Lenape graduate Lindsey Walsh is No. 2 at 3,563 from 2011 at Bucknell, Bridgeton’s Mary Wilks is No. 3 with a 3,292 at Bucknell in 2010, and Moorestown’s Shatich Rivers scored 3,221 at Yale in 1995. The other non-South Jersey woman in the top 6 is Michaela Reed from Manasquan High, who scored 3,229 in 2014 at Bucknell and is No. 4.

Rutledge opened with a big PR 9.29 in the 60-meter hurdles – her previous PR was a 9.56 at last year’s CAA Championships. She high jumped 4-7 ¾, just shy of her PR of 4-9 ½, and then threw 30-5 ½ in the shot, an indoort PR and only a quarter inch off her lifetime best from the outdoor CAA meet this past May in Williamsburg, Va.

Rutledge long jumped 17-0 ¾, not far off her PR of 17-6 set at the Big 5 Meet at Franklin Field this past April – the only meet she competed in last spring – and then she finished with a 2:29.01 in the 800.

This was Rutledge’s first multi in 10 months, since last year’s indoor conference meet.

Senior Gabriel Wilkins became Absegami’s first 50-foot shot putter Friday with a 50-3 ¾ PR at the initial SJTCA meet at the Bubble in Toms River.

Series info isn’t available, but Wilkins placed 2nd to Delsea junior Jonathan Harris, who threw 52-5 ½ in the season opener. Harris threw 58-4 ½ last year at Franklin Field, but the 52-5 ½ is actually an indoor PR. He threw 52-0 at Easterns in March at the Armory.

For Wilkins, the 50-footer was a big PR. He had terrific success in the discus last year, throwing 160-11 and placing 2nd at Group 2 states at Delsea, behind only Delsea senior Luke Maxwell, who threw 166-6. He was the No. 7 underclassman in New Jersey and No. 3 in South Jersey.

But his shot PR was 49-5 ¾ from Woodbury and his indoor best was 47-1 ¾ at states at the Bubble. He’s the first Atlantic County thrower to hit 50 in the shot and 160 in the disc since Holy Spirit’s Cade Antonucci, who threw 59-5 ¼ and 169-1 in 2017 as well as 220-11 in the javelin, his strongest event.

Eastern graduate Jailya Ash opened her indoor season with the 2nd-fastest hurdles time in UConn history.

Ash, a sophomore at Connecticut, ran a personal-best 8.27 to win the 60-meter hurdles Friday at the UConn Husky Challenge in Storrs.

Ash came into the meet with a PR of 8.31 from a meet in Boston in December of 2022. She went on to win the Big East title in Chicago in 8.35 and won the outdoor Big East in 13.58 at Villanova in her last meet until Friday.

In the prelims, Ash ran 8.44 and was 2nd-fastest into the finals behind Aliyah Thomas, a Union Catholic graduate and UConn junior running unattatched. Thomas was an NCAA qualifier in the 100-meter highs last spring and is a 21-7 ¾ long jumper.

In the final, Ash edged Thomas 8.27 to 8.38.

It’s awfully early, but through the first weekend of the indoor season and Day 1 of the second weekend, Ash ranks No. 4 in NCAA Division 1 with her 8.27 on the updated TFRRS performance list.

UConn hasn’t updated its track web site records section in eight years (come on, UConn Sports Info! Get your act together!), but when Ash started running hot times for the Huskies, I went through years of results and came up with my own all-time UCOnn 60-meter hurdles performance list.

I’m pretty sure this is accurate:

8.24 … Phylicia George, 2010
8.27 … Jailya Ash, 2024
8.33 … April Garner, 2005
8.41 … Aliyah Thomas, 2023
8.45 … Madalayne Smith, 2012
8.55 … Chantal Scott, 2014
8.59 … Emily Lavarnway, 2023
8.61 … Shavon Briscoe, 2012
8.61 … Tia Strackman, 2018
8.62 … Ashley Wiggins, 2017

Sterling graduate Jah’Mere Beasley, a nine-time All-America during his years at Rowan, has resurfaced at Rutgers and placed 4th in the season-opening Rutgers Holiday Classic in his first race wearing a Scarlet Knights singlet.

Beasley ran 6.94 in the 60 meters at the Armory, finishing behind teammates James Bivins from Donovan Catholic in Toms River and Chris Serrao of East Brunswick, the 2022 Meet of Champions 110 hurdles champ, as well as Monmouth’s Alex Kislenko from Fair Lawn. All four placed within 4-100ths of a second of each other.

Beasley has a PR of 6.89, which he ran twice while at Rowan – at the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships at Ocean Breeze in 2022 and then a few weeks later at the All-Atlantic Regional Championships in Rochester.

Beasley ran 10.55, 21.00 and 47.86 outdoors while at Rowan.

The fastest 60 time ever by a Rutgers sprinter from South Jersey is 6.85 by Pemberton’s Bobby Orro at the 1999 IC4A Championships in Boston. Orro was the 1993 Meet of Champions winner in the 100 at 10.66.

Interesting that Beasley’s long-time NJAC rival Cheickna Traore, a three-time NCAA Division 3 champ for Ramapo and D-3 record holder at 200 meters with a 20.25, also transferred out of the NJAC and is now a grad student at Penn State. So once again, Beasley and Traore are in the same conference.

Stockton senior Khristina Washington from Hammonton opened her season with a triple jump PR at the Fastrack Season Opener at Ocean Breeze.

Washington leaped 36-4 on her final attempt to move from 8th to 3rd. She opened with two fouls, 35-0 ½, 33-8 ½, 35-2 ½ before closing with a new PR.

Her previous wind-legal jump was a 36-3 ½ outdoors at Widener this past April. She had a wind-aided 35-4 ¾ when she won the New Jersey Athletic Conference meet in Mahwah in May. Her previous indoor PR was a 35-1 ¼ when she placed 2nd at last year’s indoor NJAC meet at Ocean Breeze.

Her 36-4 ranks No. 18 through opening weekend in NCAA Division 3 and No. 1 in the NJAC.

Washington also placed 6th in the long jump with a 16-7 ¾. She has a long jump PR of 17-6 ¼, also from last year’s outdoor NJAC meet, where she placed 2nd. Her indoor long jump PR is 17-2 ¾ from a meet this past January at the Armory.

Washington is tied for No. 1 in the early going in the NJAC in the long jump. Teammate Emma Petrolia from New Milford also jumped 16-7 ¾ at Ocean Breeze on Friday.

Rowan’s women’s 1,600-meter relay team – Nevaeh Lorjuste, Molly Lodge, Kathleen Pederson and Jasmine Broadway – ran the fastest time in NCAA Division 1 on the opening weekend of the indoor track season.

The Profs ran 3:53.48 at the Fastrack Season Opener at Ocean Breeze, winning by 10 meters over St. Joe’s, which placed 2nd in 3:55.13.

Lorjuste is a sophomore from Triton, Lodge a sophomore from Woodstown, Pederson a senior from Hillsborough and Broadway a sophomore from Burlington Township.

Lorjuste opened with a 58.78 to put the Profs in the lead, and Lodge split 59.94, delivering the baton to Pederson in a virtual dead heat with Adelphia, which got a 57.74 split from its second runner. Pederson passed Adelphi’s third runner, and St. Joe’s moved into 2nd with a 58.71 leg by junior Jessica Rubio from Clifton High.

Rowan led by 35-100ths going into the anchor legs, but Broadway left no doubt with a 55.99 anchor. St. Joe’s anchor – another New Jersey alum, senior Maris Rodriguez of Academy of the Holy Angels – split 57.29 anchoring for St. Joe’s.

Although Rowan’s web site lists the school record as 3:52.57, they actually ran faster than that three times last year.

The Rowan women set the real school record of 3:50.39 this past March when they placed 8th at the NCAA Championships in Birmingham, Ala. Rowan also had a 3:50.98 at last year’s Fasttrack Last Chance Meet at Ocean Breeze last February and a 3:51.16 at the Armory in March in the All-Atlantic Conference Championships.

Lorjuste, Lodge, Pederson and Broadway ran on all of those teams.

So the 3:52.57 that Rowan lists as its school record is at best 4th best in school history.

No other Division 3 school ran under 3:55 opening weekend. MIT has the 2nd-fastest time in D-3 with a 3:56.78 at Boston University on Saturday.

Delsea graduate Nico Morales began his junior year with an indoor pole vault PR and the No. 5 mark in Rutgers history.

Morales cleared 16-6 Friday at the Rutgers Holiday Classic at the Armory, where he placed 2nd to Rutgers freshman Brian O’Sullivan, who cleared 17-1 ¾ in his first collegiate meet. O’Sullivan won the Meet of Champions last spring at 16-6 ½, his previous PR.

If the results are accurate, Morales only took two jumps – clearing 16-2 on his first attempt and 16-6 on his first attempt, then shutting down. The bar moved up to 16-10, but Morales did not take any attempts there.

Morales’ previous indoor best was a 16-0 ¾ at the 2002 Battle in Beantown at Boston University. He didn’t compete indoors last year, so this was his first indoor meet since the 2022 Big Ten Championships at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

Morales has a lifetime best of 16-9 ½ from the Penn Relays at Franklin Field this past April.

At Delsea, Morales cleared 15-6 indoors and 15-7 outdoors. Twin brother Marco cleared 16-0 indoors and 15-6 outdoors. He competed for Rutgers in two meets in the spring of 2021 before retiring from track.

Anthony Vazquez ran a hurdles PR in Syracuse’s season-opening meet Saturday in Ithaca.

Vazquez, an Egg Harbor Township graduate, ran 7.94 and won the 60-meter highs at the Greg Page Relays and Multis at legendary Barton Hall on Cornell’s campus.

Vazquez, a junior, edged teammate Emanuel Joseph by 5-100ths of a second. Deptford grad Naseem Smith, a Syracuse senior, was 4th in 8.06, not far off his PR of 8.00, which he ran in the trials.

For Vazquez, the 7.94 was a PR of 1-100th of a second. He ran 7.95 at the same meet last year.

In the prelims, Vazquez was only 3rd-fastest at 8.03, behind Toronto junior David Adeleye [7.93] and Joseph [8.00]. Adeleye ran 7.99 in the final.

Vazquez’s time is No. 14 in NCAA Division 1 through the first weekend of indoor activity. Princeton’s Greg Foster from Lumberton and Lawrenceville Prep is No. 10 at 7.92.