Tiny Clayton, one of the smallest schools in the state, took over the top of the South Jersey performance list in the girls sprint medley Friday night with a 4:09.46 at Cherokee.

The time is No. 3 in the state this year, behind powerhouse programs Colts Neck [4:06.03] and Union Catholic [4:08.12].

It’s the fastest time ever by a South Jersey Group 1 school and the fastest by any New Jersey Group 1 school in at least 20 years and most likely ever. That will take some additional research.

It’s https://sjtrackblog.com/2020/05/30/how-a-south-jersey-record-got-faster-after-the-race-ended-and-the-all-time-girls-sprint-medley-top-50/ and No. 3 in Gloucester County history and less than 1 1/2 seconds off the Gloucester County record.

4:08.08 … Kingsway, 2017 [New Balance Nationals]
4:08.27 … Washington Twp., 2007 [East Coast Relays]
4:09.46 … Clayton, 2021 [Cherokee Relays]
4:10.0h … Williamstown, 1979 [Woodbury Relays]
4:11.76 … Washington Twp., 1999 [East Coast Relays]

The results show Skylah Surran, Rafael Marshall, Tori Millward and Mirrah Perdue running for Clayton but presumably the three Sharpe sisters were actually on the track – Amirah, Arianna and Ariel.

Amirah Sharpe ran 2:15.05 while she was at Paulsboro in 2018, so she was the most likely anchor. Arianna 57.47 earlier this spring so we’re guessing she ran the 400. So our best guess is that Ariel ran one of the 200s, possibly with Surran, Marshall, Millward or Perdue.

If you know who actually ran the four legs, please let us know in the comments section so we can get the names right!

Clayton was the only school in the race under 4:18.

The Clippers’ 400 runner split 56.22 and their anchor was credited with a 2:19.14 off a 62.17 first lap.

Until this race, the fastest sprint medley on record for Clayton in MileSplit’s database – which goes back 20 years – was a 4:45.62 at the 2015 Woodbury Relays.

The three Sharpe sisters attended Paulsboro through the end of last year and transferred to Clayton at some point between the end of the 2020 spring season until the start of this year’s spring season.

Paul VI ran the fastest 800-meter relay in New Jersey this year at the Cherokee Relays Friday night.

Senior Matthew Jenkins and juniors Matthew Mazero, Michael Mazero and Cameron Serafinelli ran 1:28.95, with Pennsauken also running sub-1:30 and finishing second in 1:29.94, which is No. 3 in the state this year. Rancocas Valley ran 1:29.79 last weekend at Deptford.

The time puts Paul VI a fraction of a second outside the all-time South Jersey top-50.

It’s 3rd-fastest in school history, behind the 2016 team, which ran 1:27.38, and the 2018 group, which ran 1:28.38.

The time is also third-fastest in Pennsauken history. Sophomore Bryce Tucker, sophomore Ejani Shakir, freshman Elijah Jennings and sophomore Premier Wynn ran for Pennsauken, which ran 1:30.01 last weekend at Deptford. 

The Haddonfield girls smashed the South Jersey record in the 3,200-meter relay Friday night at the Cherokee Relays in Marlton.

Stoner, Lindsay, Naticchia, Allison

Seniors Olivia Stoner, Lindsay Colflesh, Sarah Naticchia and Allison Colflesh ran 9:04.72, breaking the South Jersey record of 9:06.62 set by Lenape when they placed third at the 2012 New Balance Nationals in Greensboro, N.C.

Haddonfield’s time is No. 1 in the country this year.

It’s also No. 14 in state history.

Haddonfield’s previous school record was 9:06.30 from the 2008 Penn Relays, where they placed seventh in the Championship of America race.

Stoner led off with a 2:15.05 split, followed by Lindsay Colflesh at 2:16.27, Naticchia  at 2:17.07 and Colflesh anchoring in 2:16.35.

Here’s a look at the all-tine New Jersey top-20:

8:45.37 … Columbiua, 2014
8:52.80 … Southern Regional, 2009
8:54.88 … Columbia, 1997
8:55.44 … Freehold Township, 2014
8:55.82 … Ridge, 2017
8:56.45 … Pope John XXIII, 2007
8:59.16 … Voorhees, 2002
8:59.78 … Union Catholic, 2019
9:00.38 … Bernards,2010
9:00.43 … Ridgewood, 2012
9:03.74 … Red Bank Catholic, 2012
9:03.4h… Bernards, 1983
9:04.22 … Roxbury, 2008
9:04.72 … Haddonfield, 2021
9:05.62 … Lenape, 2012
9:05.83 … Lenape, 2008
9:06.30 … Haddonfield, 2008
9:06.47 … West Windsor-Plainsboro, 2014
9:06.80 … Voorhees, 2008
9:06.92 … Randolph, 2010
9:07.1h … Columbia, 1983

Cherokee loaded up its first two legs to give Haddonfield a race and wound up placing second in 9:20.44, which is a school record, No. 2 in the state this year, No. 9 nationally on the MileSplit national database and No. 22 in South Jersey history.

For Cherokee, sophomore Kelsey Niglio led off with a 2:16.65 split, followed by junior Nicole Clifford (2:16.80) and seniors Meghan Carroll (2:25.59) and  Erin Jackson (2:21.32).

Penn State freshman Lucciano Pizarro, a Cherokee High School graduate, bombed four shot put PRs Friday, including the first 60-foot throw of his life.

Pizarro won the competition at the https://live.pttiming.com/?mid=2254

at Penn State’s track in State College with a throw of 61-1 1/2 on his fifth attempt.

He moved up to No. 6 freshman in all of NCAA Division 1 and his throw is the best by a Penn State freshman in at least 30 years, or as far back as available records go.

Pizarro began the day with a PR of 56-9 3/4 from the Fighting Illini Big Ten Relays in Champaign last month.

He then proceeded to record five legal throws on Friday, all well above his previous PR.

His five legal throws averaged 59-7, so his average throw was nearly three above his previous lifetime best with the 16-pound ball and his worst throw – a 58-6 3/4 – was nearly two feet better than his previous best.

His series looked like this:

1) 59-3 1/2
2) 59-8 1/4
3) foul
4) 58-6 3/4
5) 61-1 1/2
6) 59-4 1/4

Pizarro had a high school personal-best of 60-11, when he won the 2019 Meet of Champions at Northern Burlington. So he’s now thrown the 16-pound shot farther than he ever threw the 12-pound shot!

With the 61-1 1/2, Pizarro moved up from No. 16 to No.  7 in the Big Ten Conference and No. 3 among freshmen, behind Andrew Stone of Wisconsin [63-4 3/4] and John Meyer of Michigan [62-11 1/2].

Stone, Meyer and Pizarro now rank No. 1, 3 and 6 in all of NCAA Division 1 among freshmen shot putters.

Pizarro’s throw is No. 9 in Penn State history (and good luck trying to navigate the God-awful https://issuu.com/gopsusports/docs/updated_complete_yearbook20-21).

There was quite an 800 race at Wednesday’s Cherokee-Lenape dual meet, with four runners under two minutes.

Cherokee senior Brett Shea led the way, winning in 1:56.6, following by Lenape’s Justin Penny, who ran 1:59.0.

Cherokee sophomore Patrick Ditmars took third in 1:59.4 and Cherokee freshman Nick Kuenkel was fourth in 1:59.8.

Shea has run some fast relay splits, including a 1:56.3 to give Cherokee a 4-by-8 win at the Blue Devil Classic this past weekend in Westfield. But his fastest previous 800 according to MileSplit, was a 2:00.27 back in early March, in an outdoor meet during the indoor season, also against Lenape.

Penny, a junior, is listed with a 2:05.43 PR by MileSplit, so this appears to be a big PR for him as well. 

Ditmars has run mainly the 1,600 and 3,200 so far, and MileSplit shows a previous 2:12.46 PR for him from an indoor meet at the Bubble back in February of 2020.

And Kuenkel shows a previous 800 PR of 2:06.16 from the same meet on March 3 that Shea ran his 2:00.27.

The only South Jersey sub-2 performances listed on MileSplit so far are a 1:55.04 and a 1:59,62 by Kingsway teammates Kyle Rakitis and Jeffrey Heineman back in March in Maplewood.

Deptford graduate Kiera Lester, a Texas Tech senior, had a fast double this past weekend at the Texas Tech Corky/Crofoot Shootout at Terry & Linda Fuller Track and Field Complex in Lubbock.

Lester placed fourth in the 400 with a time of 53.79 and also ran 23.86 in the 200 with a wind reading of exactly 2.0 meters per second, which makes her performance wind-legal.

Both times are outdoor PRs for Lester, the 2016 Meet of Champions indoor 200 winner.

A terrific double for Lester, a transfer from Penn State.

Her previous outdoor 400 PR was a 53.99 last month in a different meet in Lubbock, and her previous outdoor 200 PR was a 23.98 in April of 2019 in a meet at LSU in Baton Rouge, her junior year at Penn State.

Lester has run 23.71 and 53.37 indoors, the 23.71 in the finals of the Big Ten Championships at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in February of 2019, where she was fourth, and the 53.37 when she won the 400 at the 2020 indoor Big Ten meet at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

 

Kingsway graduate Stone Caraccio ran the two-fastest 800s of his life in his last two meets.

Caraccio, a freshman at Monmouth, ran a PR 1:52.32 last weekend in a meet at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and then ran sub-1:53 again this past weekend with a 1;52.72 in a meet at Rowan University in Glassboro.

Before these two races, Caraccio’s collegiate PR was a 1:55.76 in a meet at Lafayette University in Easton back in March. His overall outdoor PR was a 1:55.30 from 2019 Haddonfield Distance Night, and his lifetime-best was a 1:54.53 in February of 2020 indoors at Ocean Breeze.

Those PRs have all now gone by the wayside, and Caraccio is now No. 10 in Monmouth history, knocking off current teammate James Hoffman, who ran 1:52.36 a few weeks ago, by 4-100ths of a second.

Caraccio is No. 6 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference going into the conference championships this weekend in Lawrenceville. No. 4 on that list is Rancocas Valley graduate Ian Moore, who ran 1:51.98.

The first time I met legendary New Jersey track journalist and historian Ed Grant was at indoor states at Jadwin Gym in the mid-1980s when I first became aware of his New Jersey Track annuals and newsletters.

I bought whatever his most recent annual was that day and was up till 3 a.m. at my apartment in Delanco that night studying every word, every list, every record.

Safe to say that very few people have influenced my work as a journalist as much as Eddie, who maintained a statistical and anecdotal history of New Jersey track that could have filled 20 encyclopedia volumes. I was once putting together an all-time Easterns performance list and asked him if he had any results from before 1970. To my shock, the next time he saw me, he handed me a list of winners going back to 1934.

So much New Jersey track history would have been lost forever if not for Ed’s annuals and newsletters. He dedicated his life to New Jersey track and field and the sport is so much richer for it.

Ed covered 74 consecutive Penn Relays, which is insane when you think about it. It was always fun to see young sports writers pepper him with questions at Penn. It usually went something like this:

“Hey Eddie, is that the first time Hopatcong has won a 4×4 class relay?”

“No, they won it in 1963! They ran 3:31.6 and their anchor, Arnie McNally, moved them up from 6th to 1st in the last 220! Arnie had never run quarter before! He was a javelin thrower, but one of their quarter-milers missed the bus and they threw him in there and he ran 51.9! He went on to run 50.9 at the Sussex County championships and then had a great career at Bimidji State and became an architect in Sweden. He designed the new capital building in Västerås. Have you been to Västerås? Let me tell you about Västerås …”

Etc. You’d never get any work done but you’d always learn something.

I have so many stories about Ed I wouldn’t know where to start.

My favorite was Penn Relays weekend one year probably in the early 1990s. I went back to the Burlington County Times office in Willingboro to write after the meet ended, and I looked in the library and Ed was sitting there writing one of his Star-Ledger stories on a typewriter. I asked what he was doing there and he said he didn’t have time to go back to the Ledger office so he was writing in our office. But he hadn’t asked anyone or set it up. He just showed up, went inside when someone opened the door and found a place to start typing.

My pal Jim Lambert wrote a wonderful look back at Ed’s remarkable life and career, which you can find here: https://nj.milesplit.com/articles/293899/legendary-ed-grant-is-a-new-jersey-track-and-field-treasure

We lost Ed this morning. He was 94. If you’re reading this, then you’re a huge fan of New Jersey track or a former or current runner, coach, official, parent or journalist. You’re connected to this sport we all love in some way, and that means Ed has touched your life in a positive way.

He was one of a kind. There’ll never be anybody else like him.

 

Pennsauken has the fastest 4-by-4 in the state this year and if you think that’s impressive, just wait two years.

Because all four runners are sophomores.

Pennsauken ran 3:22.65 at the Deptford Spartan Relays Saturday, a bit faster than the 3:22.72 Elizabeth ran at the Metuchen Relays last month.

Premier Wynn led off with a 50.53 split, followed by Ejani Shakir’s 50.34 and Kahlil Ali’s 52.92 to set up anchor Bryce Tucker, whose 48.87 anchor gave Pennsauken a close win over Deptford, whose 3:23.32 is No. 3 in the state so far this year.

The time is Pennsauken’s fastest since 2017, when they ran as fast as 3:18.11 and won the state Group 3 title at Northern Burlington with Donte Jamison, Nahzir Russell, Braheem Whitfield and Martin Booker.

All four Pennsauken legs are fast, but Tucker in particular is that hammer that every relay team wants on the anchor leg. He has an 800 PR of 1:56.75 from the 2020 indoor Meet of Champions at Ocean Breeze, a state freshman record. He has yet to run a competitive 800 outdoors.

Tucker’s 800 ability with three quality sprinters means one thing. Watch out when these guys have a chance to run the sprint medley. They’re going to fly.

Nobody keeps freshmen or sophomore relay records, but it’s hard to imagine very many – if any – South Jersey schools have run faster than 3:22.65 with four sophomores.

Let’s take a look at the fantastic season multi-talented Highland senior Floyd Whitaker is having.

Whitaker can seemingly excel in any event he tries. And he’s tried a lot.

We know he’s one of the top triple jumpers in the country. He ranked eighth nationally in the triple jump in the last full outdoor season in New Jersey, winning the Meet of Champions at 50-2 1/2 at Northern Burlington – No. 3 in South Jersey history – and then placing eighth at New Balance Nationals in Greensboro, N.C.

But he does a lot more than triple jump.

At this weekend’s Deptford Spartan Relays, Whitaker cleared 6-4 in the high jump, setting an outdoor PR. He did have a 6-6 clearance in the winter of 2020 at the Bubble. That 6-4 is tied for No. 1 in Ne Jersey. Whitaker and Egg Harbor junior Isaiah Glenn are the only South Jersey jumpers to hit 6-4 this spring.

Whitaker has also excelled in the intermediate hurdles this spring. He ran 56.52 to win the event at the Deptford Spartan Relays after recording a PR of 55.87 the previous week at the Metuchen Relays, where he was second to Rumson Fair-Haven’s Joe Agilione, who is No. 1 in the state. Whitaker is No. 1 in South Jersey in the intermediates and No. 5 in the state.

Whitaker has only long jumped twice, with a season-best of 21-5 from Metuchen. He has a PR of 23-5 1/2 from when he won the 2020 indoor Meet of Champions at Ocean Breeze and an outdoor PR of 22-1 from the 2019 state Group 3 meet at Central Regional. Even without focusing on the long jump this spring, Whitaker is No. 9 in the state and No. 3 in South Jersey, behind only Clayton senior Termeir Hill [22-3 1/2 also at Metuchen) and Hammonton junior Connor Wright [21-7 in a dual meet].

Although he’s never done much high hurdling – he entered this season with a 16.30 PR – Whitaker ran 15.54 in a dual meet at Delsea last week in his only try at the 110 highs this spring. Not sure where that ranks because the MileSplit database doesn’t have a lot of dual meet hurdles marks logged, but it’s pretty high up there,.

And of course there’s the triple jump. Whitaker hit a PR of 47-11 1/2 at the Metuchen Relays and 45-10 1/4 in that Delsea dual meet. He’s No. 1 in the state, ahead of Mount Olive’s A.J. McKay, who hit 47-5, also at Metuchen. Whitaker and McKay went 1-2 at the 2020 indoor Meet of Champions – the last Meet of Champions that was held.

Five events. So far. And he’s among the best in the state in all of them.