Paulsboro graduate Edgar Rosa opened the outdoor season with a personal best in the javelin.

Rosa, a junior at Rowan, threw 191-11 at the Stockton Invitational in Galloway Township, breaking his previous PR of 185-5, which he set at a meet at The College of New Jersey in April of 2019 while competing for Rowan College Gloucester County.

Rosa won the NJCAA Division 3 national title that spring in Utica, N.Y., with a throw of 182-2.

At Paulsboro, Rosa had a best throw of 161-1, when he placed 5th at 2017 Group 1 states at Egg Harbor. So he’s improved more than 30 feet since he graduated.

Rosa now ranks 4th in NCAA Division 3 in the javelin. No. 1 is teammate another Rowan junior, Dan McAleavey from Howell High School. He  threw 204-7 at the Stockton Invitational. It was his first time over 200 feet. He had a previous PR of 197-7 from the 2019 NCAA Division 3 Championships at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, where he earned All-America honors with an 8th-place finish.

Jessica Woodard returned to competition in style Saturday with a 60-foot shot put bomb in her first track meet in 15 months. 

Woodard, a graduate of Cherokee, won a meet Saturday at the Chula Vista (Calif.) Elite Athlete Training Center, her first competition since an indoor met in Iowa City in January of 2020 and her first outdoor meet since a meet in Norman, Okla., in April of 2019.

That’s an Olympic qualifier for Woodard, which means if she finishes in the top three in the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene in June, she’ll represent the United States in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics (if they’re held). The qualifying standard is 58-0 1/4.

The throw was her best since a 60-4 at the Göteborg Grand Prix in Sweden in August of 2019 and 4th-best of her career. She threw just over a foot shy of her lifetime best of 61-3 1/2, which she set when she placed second at the 2018 NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore.

Good luck finding results of the entire meet on the catastrophically awful USATF web site. I did track down partial results on some track results site here.

Her throw ranks No. 2 among U.S. women so far this year behind only Jessica Ramsey, who threw 61-1 1/2 in a meet in Oxford, Miss., last month. Woodard now ranks No. 6 in the world.

Woodard ranks No. 24 in U.S. history with her 61-3 1/2 in Eugene in 2018.

Hammonton grad Rob Gardner, a freshman at Rowan, hit a couple big PRs pole vaulting this weekend at the Oscar Moore Invitational in Glassboro.

Gardner not only cleared 14 feet to tie his PR from high school, he also cleared 14-6 for the first time. And he posted the best vault by a Rowan pole vaulter outdoors in 15 years.

Gardner won the pole vault with a 14-6 clearance on his ninth jump of the day. He didn’t make opening height of 12-6 until his third attempt and after clearing 12-11 3/4 on his first try he didn’t make it over 13-6 1/4 until his third attempt as well. 

He was one of three jumper over the bar at 13-6 1/4 and since the other two – freshman teammate Eric Byrne of Randolph High and Nicolas Re of Bernards High and Stevens Institute – cleared on their first attempt, Gardner was in third place as the bar went up to 14 feet.

So he needed to match his PR to win, and he did, clearing 14-0 on his first attempt. When Byrne and Re failed to get over the bar on their three tries, Gardner had the win.

He then had the bar raised to 14-6 and cleared that on his first attempt as well.

According to the official meet results, Gardner elected to stop jumping after the 14-6 clearance, which is understandable after nine jumps.

Gardner’s previous collegiate PR was a 13-11 1/4 indoors at Ocean Breeze in February of 2020. He cleared 14-0 once at Hammonton, at the state Group 3 meet at Central Regional in Bayville in May of 2019.

Gardner had only competed in one other meet since the premature end of the 2020 indoor season, and that was a meet at Stockton last month, where he went 13-5 1/4.

That meet was won by junior Keith Holland of Stockton, a graduate of Central Regional, who went 15-3. Holland jumped 15-5 this past weekend at Stockton, the No. 9 mark in NCAA Division 3.

Gardner is now No. 2 in the NJAC behind Holland and No. 32 in NCAA Division 3 and No. 8 among freshmen.

Gardner’s 14-6 is the best clearance by a Rowan vaulter since Adam Diekewicz went 14-7 indoors at the Gotham Cup at the Armory in January of 2012. It’s the best outdoor jump since Ryan West (from Toms River North) cleared 15-9 at the 2006 NJAC Championships at Rowan.

In his first college meet, Jah’mere Beasley had to run the 100 into a 3.1-mph wind and the 200 into a 4.6-mph wind.

On Saturday, he had the wind at his back and the result was a fast double win for the Rowan freshman out of Sterling High School in the Oscar Moore Invitational in Glassboro.

Beasley won the 100 in 10.86 and the 200 in 21.93, and while both marks were wind-aided – 2.3 for the 100 and 2.2 for the 200 – , he did have a wind-legal 10.95 in the 100 (1.8).

Beasley had PRs of 10.81 and 21.30, both from the 2019 Meet of Champions at Northern Burlington, which was his last meet until last weekend.

Beasley won the 100 by 6-100ths of a second over Da’avionce Rodriguez of Lincoln, who ran 10.92, and won the 200 by 12-100ths of a second over Nick DiMaria of Stevens Institute, who ran 22.05.

His times rank No. 20 in NCAA Division 3 in the 100 and No. 14 in the 200. The school records are 10.64 in the 100, set in 2017 by Dior Hightower of Paul VI in the trials of the 2017 Oscar Moore Invite, and 21.18 in the 200, set by Ali Ejaz of Glassboro High in the prelims of the 2012 NCAA Division 3 Championships in Claremont, Calif.

Penn junior Alyssa Condell finally made her 2021 debut Saturday and ran a near-PR for 1,500 meters at the Big 5 Invitational at Franklin Field.

Condell, a graduate of Timber Creek, ran 4:40.19 to place second to teammate Laura Baeyens, who ran 4:39.76.

https://results.lexicontiming.com/meets/8010/events/253775/results

Condell had not raced at all since February of 2020, when she ran 5:00.41 in an indoor mile at Penn State. Her last outdoor race was in April of 2019, two years ago, when she ran her personal-best of 4:38.45 for 1,500 meters in a meet at Princeton.

What a race today by Kristin Siegle! 

The Rider grad student, a graduate of Buena, won the 1,500 at a five-team meet in Lawrenceville Saturday with a personal-best of 4:34.78.

That’s No. 4 in Rider history and fastest in five years, since Steph Welte ran 4:31.64 in 2016 at IC4A’s in Princeton. It’s also fastest in the Metro Atlantic Athletic League so far this year.

Siegle ran unpressed, winning by about 50 meters over Siena’s Morgan Serkes. A group of eight was together when the field came through the first 300, but Siegle blew the race open with a 72.8-second second lap, which gave her a 15-meter lead over second-place Mia Pestle of Quinnipiac with 800 to go.

After a 72.5-second lap, she led by 40 meters at the bell before cruising in with a 75.4. Serkes ran 4:43.53 for second

Siegle had a previous 1,500 PR of 4:39.94. She ran a mile PR of 4:55.34 from her last race on the track, the trials of the 2020 indoor ECAC meet in Boston.

Saturday was her first outdoor race since she ran a 4:43.58 at Swarthmore in May of 2019.

Siegle is an incredible story of persistence and determination. She had a high school PR of 5:15.98  from sophomore year at the 2014 Cape Atlantic Championships at Egg Harbor – she finished six seconds behind Ocean City’s Bridget Flynn. She ran 5:24 as a junior and 5:28 as a senior. Then she ran 5:18 her freshman year at Rider and didn’t break 5:30 as a sophomore.

But she got down to 5:06 in 2019 and then ran 4:55 outdoors in 2019 and 2:13 indoors last year. And after a 13-month layoff, she wins a 1,500 against a solid field.

We just wrote about Cade Antonucci a few days ago after he threw 232-10 in his first javelin competition in two years. But we’re going to do it again because the Auburn senior snapped his PR on Friday, throwing 241-0 at the Florida Relays in Gainesville. 

Antonucci, a Holy Spirit graduate, broke his PR of 237-5, which he set at the 2019 Penn Relays.

Antonucci placed second to D.J. Johnson of Mississippi State, who won the competition with a 253-5.

Antonucci’s mark is No. 2 in Auburn history. Justin Carter held the school record for seven years, since he threw 239-7 at the 2014 SEC Championships in Lexington, Ky. Senior Nils Fischer, a transfer from Angelo State, broke Carter’s mark with a 241-9 at the Florida State Relays in Tallahassee, the same meet Antonucci threw 232-10.

Those two marks are now No. 1 and 2 in school history. 

Antonucci threw 220-11 in high school when he won the 2017 Meet of Champions. He also threw the shot put 59-5 1/4 and the discus 169-1. 

Jude Misko bombed another huge hammer PR Friday with the top throw in NCAA Division 3.

Stockton’s Darren Wan, an Egg Harbor garduate, also moved into the Division 3 top-10!

Misko, a Cherry Hill East graduate who’s now a senior at Rutgers-Camden, threw 195-5 at the Stockton Invitational in Galloway Township, surpassing his week-old PR by more than five feet.

He actually had four throws over 190 feet in his series, so he actually had the four-best throws in all of Division 3 in one meet.

The next-best throw in Division 3 this spring is a 190-11 by Jacob Bugella of Wisconsin-Stout from a meet Friday at Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Misko opened his series with a foul, but then surpassed 190 feet on four of his next five throws.

He threw a PR 193-6 on his second throw, then 192-10 on his third, 193-5 on his fourth. After a 184-3, he closed with the 195-5.

Misko had an unheralded career at Cherry Hill East, where he threw 43-9 1/2 in the shot (47-4 1/2 indoors) and never placed higher than 19th at sectionals. 

He picked up the hammer while he was at Rowan College at Gloucester County, winning an NJCAA Division 3 national title in 2017 with a throw of 164-9 at Howard Community College in Columbia, Md.

Misko extended his PR to 179-1 at the Widener Invitational in April of 2019 but after transferring to Rutgers-Camden but after being forced to sit out the cancelled 2020 season, he blew that away last month with a 190-2 at the Stockton Invitational No. 1 in Galloway Township, his first meet in two years, before PR’ing again on Friday.

Stockton’s Wan also PR’d with a throw of 180-7, which is No. 6 in NCAA Division 3. His previous PR was 174-2, also at the previous edition of the Stockton Invitational last weekend. His PR coming into this spring season was 169-11 from the 2019 NJAC Championships, also at Stockton, where he was second to Misko’s 172-2 with a 169-11.

Wan last weekend broke the school record of 173-4 set 15 years ago by Steve Cassidy (high school unknown).

Cherokee grad Lucciano Pizarro popped his second PR in as many outdoor meets for Rutgers Friday, hurling the 16-pound shot 55-11 1/4 at the Big 10 Florida Invitational in Jacksonville. 

Pizarro, a freshman at Rutgers, actually PR’d twice in a row. After opening with identical throws of 53-5 3/4 and 53-5 3/4, he hit 55-9 on his third before surpassing 17 meters for the first time on his fourth throw, the 55-11 1/4. He fouled on his last two tosses.

Pizarro’s previous PR was a 55-1 1/4 indoors at Penn State in February. His previous outdoor PR was a 53-11 1/2 at the Maryland Invitational last weekend

His throw is No. 8 in Rutgers history.

Kingsway’s Stone Caraccio is off to an impressive start this spring for Monmouth, where he’s already run a couple fast races in his first couple collegiate meets.

Monmouth didn’t have an indoor season, so Caraccio didn’t race until two weeks ago, when he ran a 1,500 PR of 3:56.63 in a dual meet against Army in West Point, N.Y. 

That’s equal to a 4:14.07 for 1,600 meters or a 4:15.56 for the full mile, which is only a fraction over his high school 1,600 PR of 4:13.46, which he ran in a fast state Group 4 race at Franklin township two years ago. (He also ran an indoor 4:15.35 full mile, which is equal to a 4:13.87 for 1,600). Considering this was his first outdoor race in nearly two years and his first track of any kind since the end of the 2020 indoor season, that’s a great way to start.

This past weekend at Lafayette, Caraccio ran 1:55.76 in an 800, again not far off his lifetime best of 1:54.53 from an indoor race in February of 2020 at Ocean Breeze and just above his outdoor PR of 1:55.30 from 2019 Haddonfield Distance Night.

That’s two open races as a collegian and two near-PRs coming off a nearly two-year layoff, and that’s good stuff.

Caraccio currently ranks 7th in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in the 800 and No. 2 among freshmen and No. 7 in the 1,500 and No. 3 among freshmen. One of the freshmen ahead of him is Camden Catholic’s Richie Castañeda, who we recently wrote about here.