Northern Burlington senior Samuel Thomas broke the Burlington County 60-meter dash record Saturday and moved into the all-time South Jersey top-10 in the 55.

Thomas, racing at the Ocean Breeze Elite Invitational on Saturday, placed 2nd to Ricardo Cooper of Calvert Hall College High in Towson, Md., in the 60, Cooper winning the race in 6.82 and Thomas placing 2nd in 6.91.

En route, they were officially timed in 6.34 and 6.42 for 55 meters. In the trials, Cooper ran 6.91 and Thomas 6.99 with en route times of 6.42 and 6.50.

Thomas’s 6.91 broke the Burlington County 60-meter dash record of 7.00 set in 2008 by Daequan Prince of Bordentown and moved into the No. 4 spot on the all-time South Jersey list.

The 60 is only run rarely on the high school level, but Thomas’s 55-meter dash time of 6.42 is No. 9 in South Jersey history and fastest by any South Jersey sprinter in 14 years. In 2009, Glassboro’s James Brown ran 6.38 at the Meet of Champions and Timber Creek’s Damiere Byrd ran 6.39 at South Jersey Group 3 sectionals, both at the Bubble.

Thomas’s 55 time is 2nd-fastest in New Jersey this year and fastest by a South Jersey sprinter. Ewing’s Mekhi Stafford ran 6.38 also at Ocean Breeze in January.

It’s also 3rd-fastest in Burlington County history behind two Willingboro greats – Kenny Reyonlds ran 6.36 at 1986 Easterns at Princeton’s Jadwin Gym and Carl Lewis ran 6.37 in 1979 (for 60 yards) but I haven’t figured out where.

The fastest time from all the state meets was 6.44 run by Seton Hall Prep’s Xavier Donaldson in the Parochial A race. That’s the difference between the Bubble and the Ocean Breeze track, where the Meet of Champions will be held next Saturday.

Thomas’s previous 55 PR was 6.50, which he’s run twice – at sectionals and in the trials Saturday at Ocean Breeze. He was 2nd at the state Group 3 meet in 6.51 behind Bergenfield’s Xavier Hayletts, who ran 6.47.

Thomas is the No. 4 seed in the M-of-C behind Donaldson, Hayletts and Southern Regional’s Cole Carmer (6.51).

The improvement Thomas has displayed this year is remarkable. He only ran one 55 last winter and didn’t break seven seconds (7.02 at the Bubble). But he had a breakthrough outdoor season, running 21.74 and 10.78

Northern’s school record before this year was 6.69 set by Said Mustapha at the 2008 Group 3 sectionals at the Bubble.

Here’s a look at every South Jersey sprinter that’s run sub-6.50:
6.30 … Jamar Ervin [Camden], 2001
6.31 … Dennis Mitchell [Edgewood], 1984
6.34 … A.J. Bunton [West Deptford], 2006
6.36 … Kenny Reynolds [Willingboro], 1986
6.37 … Carl Lewis [Willingboro], 1979
6.38 … James Brown [Glassboro], 2009
6.39 … Damiere Byrd [Timber Creek], 2009
6.41 … Chris Church [Millville], 2007
6.42 … Thomas Walls [Wilson], 2006
6.42 … Dominique Irons [Haddon Heights], 2013
6.42 … Samuel Thomas [Northern Burlington], 2023
6.43 … George McKey [Willingboro], 1982
6.43 … Anthony Averett [Woodbury], 2013
6.44 … Thomas Hampton [Clayton], 2019
6.44 … Malachi James [Burlington City], 2023
6.45 … Paul Wheeler [Kennedy], 1983
6.45 … Miekel House [Rancocas Valley], 2020
6.45 … Sherron Bullock [Camden], 2004
6.45 … Rob McGriff [Camden], 2006
6.45 … Antonio Tarantino [Paul VI], 2018
6.46 … Albert Newkirk [Camden], 1996
6.46 … Darnell Charles [Oakcrest], 2012
6.46 … Kashif Miller [Haddon Heights], 2014
6.47 … Anthony Jones [Edgewood], 1982
6.47 … Darren Ford [Vineland], 2004
6.47 … Reggie Morton [Oakcrest], 2012
6.47 … Curtis Fitzpatrick [Egg Harbor Twp.], 2013
6.47 … Jonathan Taylor [Salem], 2016
6.47 … Josh Washington [Woodbury], 2019
6.47 … Ahmad Brock [Egg Harbor Twp.], 2020
6.48 … Gary Gordon [Willingboro], 1995
6.48 … Fabian Santiago [Oakcrest], 2012
6.48 … Caleb Williams [St. Joe’s-Hammonton], 2015
6.48 … Clayton Crosse [Washington Twp.]. 2016
6.49 … Louis Smith [Burlington Twp.], 1997
6.49 … Michael Bolling [Willingboro], 2001
6.49 … Martin Booker [Pennsauken], 2016
6.49 … Ryquell Amstead [Millville], 2014
6.49 … Malachi Melton [Cedar Creek], 2019

And here’s the all-time South Jesey 60-meter dash list:
6.70 … Damiere Byrd [Timber Creek], 2011
6.83 … Jamar Ervin [Camden], 2001
6.87 … Chris Church [Millville], 2007
6.91 … Samuel Thomas [Northern Burlington], 2023
6.93 … A.J. Bunton [West Deptford], 2007
7.00 … Daequan Prince [Bordentown], 2008
7.01 … Michael Bolling [Willingboro], 1999
7.02 … Rob McGriff [Camden], 2006
7.03 … Gary Gordon [Willingboro], 1995
7.03 … Albert Newkirk [Camden], 1996
7.04 … Thomas Hampton [Clayton], 2018
7.06 … Sherron Bullock [Camden], 2004
7.06 … Fabian Santiago [Oakcrest], 2012
7.08 … Curtis Fitzpatrick [Egg Harbor Twp.], 2013
7.11 … Kashif Miller [Haddon Heights], 2014
7.13 … Cameron Dobbins [Williamstown], 2015
7.15 … Reggie Morton [Oakcrest], 2012
7.16 … Malachi James [Willingboro], 2021
7.19 … Sterling Pierce [Rancocas Valley], 2015

Kingsway’s Kylie Anicic, a junior at Edinboro, completed her second consecutive conference quad win Sunday with victories in the mile and 3,000. She won the 5,000 and anchored the winning distance medley on Saturday.

Anicic has now won 12 PSAC titles since transferring from Towson, including 10 in individual events. She currently ranks 15th in NCAA Division 2 at 3,000 meters and 8th at 5,000 meters.

On Saturday, Anicic ran 17:34.83 to win a strategic 5,000 on Saturday at the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championships at Gerhard Fieldhouse at Bucknell in Lewisburg, Pa. You can read about that race here: https://sjtrackblog.com/2023/02/25/kingsways-kylie-anicic-of-edinboro-wins-5000-her-8th-psac-title-with-two-more-races-sunday/

She also ran a 4:58.24 anchor as Edinboro won the DMR in 12:05.77, Edinburg’s fastest time this year.

On Saturday, Anicic ran 17:34.83 to win a strategic 5,000 on Saturday at the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championships at Gerhard Fieldhouse at Bucknell in Lewisburg, Pa. You can read about that race here: https://sjtrackblog.com/2023/02/25/kingsways-kylie-anicic-of-edinboro-wins-5000-her-8th-psac-title-with-two-more-races-sunday/

She came back Sunday to win the mile in 5:02.72 and the 3,000 in 10:06.49 for 30 of Edinboro’s 94 ½ total points. She single-handedly outscored West Chester, Bloomsburg, Mansfield, Indiana (Pa.), Clarion and the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.

Anicic won the mile off a ridiculously slow pace, which suited her perfectly with the 3,000 – her third race of the weekend – coming up two hours later.

The pack was out in 2:42.22 for the half, and the entire field came through four laps within a second of one another. Considering that the slow heat was won in 5:18.78, it was only a matter of time before Anicic picked things up.

On the sixth lap, Anicic and teammate Kimberly Goerss finally broke away from the group, and Anicic used her lethal kick – which was completely intact off such a slow early pace – to put the race away over the final 600.

She closed in 32.53 for the last lap, 66.17 for the final quarter and 2:20.52 for the final half. That means she ran her second half mile 22 seconds faster than her first half mile (2:42.22 to 2:20.520, which is about as extreme as negative splits can get.

Goerrs finished second in both the mile and 5,000 in 5:06.89 and 17:47.36 and ran the 1,200 leg on the winning DMR.

Anicic won the 3,000 in similar fashion as the mile, closing quickly off a modest early pace. There was a pack of seven runners who all came through 2,000 meters between 6:55.48 and 6:56.77, but on the 11th lap Anicic opened up a nearly three-second gap on the field and she gradually widened it the rest of the way.

She closed in 37.34 for her final lap, 75.27 for her final quarter and 2:33.44 for the final half and won by 30 meters over Anna Igims of Slippery Rock, who took 2nd in 10:12.42.

Anicic won conference titles last indoor season in the mile, 3,000, 5,000 and distance medley, outdoors in the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 and this past fall in cross country.

Anicic has PRs of 4:30.52 for 1,500 meters from an outdoor meet in Charlotte, N.C., last March, 4:54.93 for the mile from last month in Youngstown, 9:29.56 over 3,000 meters from State College last month, 16:26.23 from a meet in Allendale, Mich., in December and 34:37.31 from Bucknell last April.

Kingsway’s Orion Joyner, a junior at Rhode Island, smashed his PR and won his second conference title in the triple jump Sunday.

Joyner leaped 48-7 ¼ and won the Atlantic 10 Conference triple jump title by half an inch over Virginia Commonwealth senior DeJon Mayo at Mackal Fieldhouse on Rhode Island’s campus in Kingston. Mayo made things interesting with a 48-5 ¾ on his final attempt.

Joyner’s jump is No. 9 in school history.

Last winter, Joyner won the indoor triple jump title in Fairfax with a 48-5 ¼, which was his previous PR. He’s Rhode Island’s first repeat triple jump champ in the indoor conference meet since Ronald Woodley won in 2011 and 2012.

This year, Joyner opened with the winning jump but after a foul on his second attempt he added jumps of 46-4, 47-1 ½, 46-10 and 46-11 ½.

At Kingsway, Joyner jumped 48-1 ¼ outdoors to win 2019 sectionals at Washington Township. His indoor PR in high school was 46-5 at 2019 Easterns at the Armory.

Kingsway graduate Kylie Anicic, a junior at Edinboro, cruised to her eighth individual conference title Saturday when she won the 5,000 at the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championships at Bucknell University’s Gerhard Fieldhouse in Lewisburg, Pa.

Anicic ran 17:34.83 and won by 60 meters over teammate Kimberly Goerss, who ran 17:47.36. Kate Szep made it a 1-2-3 Edinboro sweep in 3rd place with a 17:48.53.

Anicic ran with a pack of six runners through 17 laps before breaking away and opening up a 25-meter lead over the next two laps.

After starting her athletic career playing field hockey at Temple and a season of cross country at Towson, Anicic has emerged as one of the top NCAA Division 2 runner in the country. She won PSAC titles last indoor season in the mile, 3,000, 5,000 and distance medley, outdoors in the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 and this past fall in cross country.

She’s scheduled to run the mile at 12:30 p.m. Sunday and the 3,000 at 2:50 p.m.

Anicic has PRs of 4:30.52 for 1,500 meters from an outdoor meet in Charlotte, N.C., last March, 4:54.93 for the mile from last month in Youngstown, 9:29.56 over 3,000 meters from State College last month, 16:26.23 from a meet in Allendale, Mich., in December and 34:37.31 from Bucknell last April.

She currently ranks 15th in NCAA Division 2 at 3,000 meters and 8th at 5,000 meters.

Incredible hurdles final shaping up in the Ivy League Championships with Paul VI graduate Aliya Garozzo of Penn and Pennsville’s Arianna Smith of Princeton posting the fastest qualifying times Saturday.

Garozzo, a sophomore, and Smith, a junior, both recorded PR’s in the 60-meter hurdles trials at Dartmouth’s Leverone Fieldhouse in Hanover, N.H. Garozzo ran 8.49 and Smith 8.50. Garozzo’s time is No. 5 in Penn history, and Smith’s ties the school record initially set by Isabella Hilditch at the 2020 Heps.

Garozzo’s previous PR was an 8.61 last month in a meet at Penn State. Smith’s was an 8.55, which she ran twice this winter.

On Saturday, Smith raced first in Lane 3 and won her heat by 3-100ths of a second over Penn junior Katherine Muccio, who ran 8.53. Garozzo, racing in Lane 7, won the second heat by 4-100ths of a second over Brown junior Brooke Ury, who also ran 8.53.

The eight qualifier for Sunday’s final all ran within 15-100ths of a second of each other, with those top four separated by 4-100ths of a second.

The final is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Sunday.

Garozzo is also the top seed in the 500-meter dash final after leading all qualifiers in a near-PR 1:14.81. Her PR is 1:13.98, No. 8 in Penn history. The 500 final is at 12:10 p.m. Sunday so it will be a busy 45 minutes for Garozzo.

Lumberton’s Greg Foster, competing in his first Ivy League Championships, not only won the long jump but broke a 44-year-old meet record.

Foster, a Lawrenceville Prep graduate, jumped 25-9 ½ on his 5th attempt at Dartmouth’s Leverone Fieldhouse, breaking the meet record of 25-5 ½ set at the 1979 meet – also at Dartmouth – by Penn’s James Brown.

Foster came within 5 ½ inches of the all-time Ivy League record for any meet, which is 26-3 by Al Dyer of Princeton in 1990 at the Manhattan Invitational. He also was just shy of the venue record of 25-11 ½ set in 1982 by Army’s Vesco Bradley.

Foster jumped within an inch of his PR of 25-10 ¾, which he set in a meet last month in Annapolis, Md. That’s No. 2 in school history, behind Dyer’s 26-3 some 33 years ago.

7.86 meters

Sophomore Jaeschel Acheampong of Harvard placed 2nd with a best jump of 24-11 ¾. Foster opened with a 24-9 ¼ and after a foul finished the trials with a 24-11 ¼. He opened the finals with a 24-3 ½ before popping the 25-9 ½. He fouled on his final attempt.

Foster also ran 8.00 in the 60-meter hurdles trials and goes into Sunday’s final as the No. 2 seed. Harvard junior Samuel Bennett ran 7.92 in a different heat.

Foster’s metric long jump PR and hurdles PR are identical – 7.89.

https://results.leonetiming.com/?mid=5413

Foster ranks 6th in the world in the Under-20 category according to World Athletics, and he’s the No. 1 American junior. He’s No. 12 in NCAA Division 1.

Georgetown’s Maya Drayton from Cherry Hill East won her first Big East title Saturday, running away from the field in the 400-meter dash.

Drayton, a Hoya junior, won the race in 54.44, finishing a whopping six meters ahead of 2nd-place Tatyana McKenzie of St. John’s, who was 2nd in 55.14 at the Dr. Conrad Worrill Indoor Track and Field Center in Chicago.

Drayton’s previous best was an outdoor 54.46 last spring at the outdoor Big East Championships in Storrs, where she placed 5th. Her previous indoor PR was a 54.78 at the 2020 Big East meet at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, where she placed 3rd.

The Georgetown women’s “media guide” on its web site hasn’t been updated in 13 years, but by taking the top indoor 400 times through 2009 and then updating through conference performance lists since then I’ve come up with my own version of an all-time Georgetown women’s indoor 400 list:

53.14 … Steffanie Smith, 1993
53.64 … Abigail Johnson, 2010
53.78 … Sasha Spencer, 2001
54.13 … Monica Hargrove, 2004
54.28 … Carron Allen, 2000
54.37 … Nickey Penado, 2001
54.44 … Maya Drayton, 2020
54.79 … Bridget Johnson, 1996
54.91 … Jennifer Bell, 1987

Eastern grad Jailya Ash, a sophomore at UConn, won her first Big East hurdles title Saturday, outracing the field in the 60-meter hurdles final in Chicago.

Ash ran 8.35, finishing a step ahead of Villanova’s Jane Livingston, who was 2nd in 8.40. She was only 4-100ths of a second off her lifetime-best of 8.31, which she ran at a meet in December in Boston.

Livingston led all qualifiers with an 8.40 in Friday’s trials, with Ash just behind in 8.42. They lined up next to each other in the final, with Livingston in Lane 4 and Ash to her right in Lane 5, and it was a two-person race, with nobody else under 8.50.

The win was particularly sweet for Ash coming a year after she failed to finish the race in the hurdles prelims in last year’s Big East meet and then finishing 11-100ths of a second behind Livingston last spring in the Big East outdoor meet in Storrs with her PR 13.58.

UConn hasn’t bothered updating the women’s track and field records section on its web site since 2015, but Ash races 2nd in school history with her 8.31 behind only Phylicia George, who ran 8.24 in the prelims of the 2010 NCAA Championships at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Willingboro grad Kenady Wilson won her 3rd conference title in the high jump Friday at the Colonial Athletic Conference meet in Virginia Beach.

Wilson, a senior at North Carolina A&T, cleared 5-5 ¾ on her third attempt to secure the win and then cleared 5-7 on her first attempt before shutting down on a high note.

Wilson won the Big South Conference meet in Winston-Salem, N.C., last winter with a clearance of 5-9¾, and she won the MEAC Outdoor Championships in May of 2021 with a 5-10 ½. I don’t know why North Carolina AT&T has been in three different conferences in the span of 21 months, but the main thing is Wilson keeps racking up conference titles.

Wilson set her PR of 6-0 ¾ last spring at the Aggie Classic in Greensboro, N.C.

North Carolina A&T does not list any school records on its web site.

Rancocas Valley’s Kristina Tossas, the No. 11 seed going in, PR’d by more than a foot to win the Big Ten long jump title Friday evening.

Tossas, a Rutgers junior, entered the meet with a lifetime-best of 19-7 ½ from a meet last month at Clemson. But she popped a 20-9 ¼ on her first attempt and that stood up as the winning jump at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

That’s the No. 3 jump in Rutgers history and best since Williamstown’s Gabrielle Farquharson went 20-10 ¼ at the 2015 Big Ten Championships, also in Geneva. Oakcreset’s Shameka Marshall set the school record of 21-10 ¼ at the 2006 NCAA Championships in Fayetteville, Ark., so the top three long jumpers in Rutgers history are all from South Jersey.

After her 20-9 ¼, Tossas fouled and jumped 18-0 ¼ before a 20-2 ¼ on her first jump of the finals and after a 17-6 she closed with a 19-11 ½. She finished with the three-best jumps of her life.

Winslow’s Tionna Tobias jumped 20-0 ½ on her third attempt and it looked like a 1-2 South Jersey finish until Indiana’s Paola Fernandez-Sola jumped 20-6 ½ on her final attempt to take second. Still, that’s two 3rd-place finishes for Tobias, who also finished 3rd in the pentathlon.

Tossas’ 20-9 ¼ is No. 17 among U.S. women, pending other results Friday, and is the best jump by a Burlington County high school graduate since Carol Lewis went 23-1 in 1985. It’s No. 7 on the all-time South Jersey alumni list and best since Winslow’s Cidae’a Woods went 21-0 at the 2017 SEC Championships in Columbia, S.C.

Tossas, a 2020 R.V. graduate, had a high school-best of 18-7 ¾ at the 2019 outdoor state meet at Franklin High. Oddly, she was also the No. 11 seed that spring when she won the state Group 4 title.