From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

Woodstown graduate Molly Lodge advanced to the final of the 400-meter hurdles at the NCAA Division 3 Championships Thursday in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Lodge, a Rowan junior, ran 1:01.91, the 8th-fastest qualifying time. She ran within about half a second of her PR of 1:01.33 from last week at the AARTFC meet at Cortland, N.Y.

Lodge also led off Rowan’s 1,600-meter relay team, which ran 3:47.29 and goes into the final as the No. 6 seed after barely qualifying as the No. 14 seed out of 16 qualifiers with a 3:48.08 from last week in Cortland. More on the 4-by-4 in a minute.

Rowan hasn’t bothered updating its list of outdoor track All-Americas in five years because why update a historical list when you just did it half a decade ago! But Rowan does list only two women who’ve earned All-America honors in the 400-meter hurdles: Laiton Roberts of Oakcrest was 3rd in 1993 in 1:02.75 and Melirah Searcy of Edison was 8th in 2015 in 1:02.68.

Click to access WOTF_All-Americans.pdf

Lodge never ran the 400-meter hurdles in high school or as a freshman in college. Her first race was in March of 2023.

She’s already a two-time All-America on Rowan’s 1,600-meter relay team, and she’ll have a chance at a 3rd when the Profs race in the 4-by-4 final at 7:50 p.m. Saturday.

Lodge led off the 4-by-4, Pennsauken’s Jasmine Pope ran 2nd, Kathleen Pederson ran 3rd with a 56.78 and Triton’s Nevaeh Lorjuste anchored in 55.30.

Woodrow Wilson graduate Dennisha Page, a senior at Tennessee, easily advanced in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes Thursday at the NCAA Division 1 Championships East First Round at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.

Page ran 11.12 to win her heat of the 100 and 22.70 to place 2nd in a virtual tie in her heat of the 200 and automatically advance to the NCAA quarterfinals on Saturday in both sprints.

Page will race in the 100 quarterfinal at 6:35 p.m. Saturday and the 200 at 7:50 p.m.

The East Region meet is being held concurrently with the West Region meet in Fayetteville, Ark. The top 12 finishers in each event at each regional advance to the semifinals at the NCAA Championships June 5-8 in Eugene, Ore.

In the 100, Page ran 11.12, the 5th-fastest time among 48 qualifiers and only 2-100ths of a second off her lifetime-best 11.10 from the SEC Championships in Gainesville, Fla. She easily won the second of six heats, and she did it with a legal 0.3 meters-per-second tailwind.

In the 200, she posted the 6th-fastest qualifying time, finishing 3-1,000ths of a second behind Florida State’s Dajaz Defrand in the 3rd of six heats. Since the top three in each race automatically advance regardless of time, it didn’t matter whether Page finished ahead of Defrand or not. Defrand was officially timed in 22.692, Page in 22.695. Page’s PR is 22.39 earlier this month, also at the SEC Championships.

The Rutgers transfer is 15th-fastest American this year in the 100 and ranked No. 29 in the world. She’s 4th-fastest in New Jersey history. She’s 10th-fastest American woman in the 200 and 14th-fastest in the world and 3rd-fastest in New Jersey history.

For the second time in two weeks, Shelby Whetstone has run an 800 PR, and this time she did it in the first round of the NCAA Championships.

Whetstone, a Rutgers senior from Lenape, ran 2:05.14 at the East Region First Round in Lexington, Ky. Although she didn’t advance to Saturday’s quarterfinals, her time is 8th-fastest in South Jersey history and fastest by a South Jersey runner in seven years.

Whetstone came up just shy of advancing to the next round, but her time is 2nd-fastest in Rutgers history, behind Kassidy Johnson’s 2:02.35 at the 2023 Tom Jones in April 2023 in Gainesville.

Whetstone missed qualifying for the quarterfinals by 11-100ths of a second. Two runners who ran slower advanced because they finished among the top three in their heat to record auto qualifiers with slower times. Whetstone was 5th in a much faster heat.

She had just PR’d with a 2:05.58 to place 5th at the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Her time is fastest by a South Jersey half-miler since Rancocas Valley graduate Kimarra McDonald ran 2:02.76 on July 12, 2017, at the Lignano Sabbiadoro Meeting International Sport Solidarieta at Guido Teghil Stadium in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy.

The 24-fastest runners in Thursday’s first round advanced to the quarterfinals at 7:05 p.m. Saturday. Then the 12-fastest from each of two regional meets advance to the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore., June 5-8.

All-=
1:59.85 … Michelle DiMuro [Shawnee], June 17, 1996, Atlanta
1:59.99 … Erin Donohue [Haddonfield], July 13, 2010, Liège, Belgium
2:02.20 … Kimarra McDonald [Rancocas Valley], June 2, 2012, Nashville
2:02.49 … Krista Ferrara [Vineland], June 25, 2006, Indianapolis
2:03.34 … Greta Feldman [Haddonfield], June 15, 2013, Indianapolis
2:03.88 … Nijgia Snapp [Oakcrest], May 13, 2012, Baton Rouge, La.
2:05.06 … Renee Tomlin [Ocean City], May 31, 2013, West Chester, Pa.
2:05.14 … Shelby Whetstone [Lenape], May 23, 2024, Lexington, Ky.
2:06.15 … Sydney Coppolino [Sterling], May 13, 2022, Durham, N.C.
2:07.18 … Kristen Neidrach [Shawnee], Kortrijk, Belgium, July 10, 2021

For the 4th year in a row, Washington Township graduate Isabelle Deal is a javelin All-America.

Deal placed 8th in the javelin Thursday at the NCAA Division 3 Championships at Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium in Myrtle Beach, S.C., with a throw of 137-9.

Deal – the No. 16 seed – opened competition with a 132-0 before hitting 137-9 on her 2nd throw of the trials. She threw 134-3 to finish the qualifying round and then closed with a foul and a couple 127-foot throws – 127-11 and 127-2.

She was sitting in 3rd place after the first flight – the lower-seeded throwers – and then hung on as only five of the 11 higher-seeded throwers passed her in the second flight. So she was seventh after the first round, and the top nine throwers got three more throws.

The 137-9 is Deal’s best throw since she transferred from Ursinus to Rowan last summer and her best overall since she threw 139-9 to place 6th at last year’s NCAA Division 3 Championships in Rochester. Her previous best throw this spring was a 135-8 in a meet at Widener. She threw her lifetime-best 155-0 – the Ursinus school record – last May in the AARTFC meet in Selinsgrove, Pa.

Deal also placed 8th at the 2021 nationals in Greensboro, N.C., at 135-1 and 6th in the 2022 meet in Geneva, Ohio, at 137-0.

Deal is the 3rd javelin All-America in Rowan women’s track history. Clayton’s Emma Painter placed 4th at 146-9 in the 1983 meet in Naperville, Ill., 2nd at 158-9 in 1984 in Northfield, Minn., and was national champ in 1985 in Granville, Ohio, with a 150-4. And Cherokee’s Melissa Lake was 8th in 2012 with a 138-5 in Claremont, Calif., and 8th again in 2013 at 137-6.

Deal is 4-for-4 finishing in the top eight in the javelin, but this year for the first time she also qualified for NCAA Division 3 nationals in the shot put with a lifetime-best and Rowan school-record 45-8 when she won the NJAC meet in Galloway Township earlier this month.

She’s No. 14 seed in the shot and scheduled to throw at 4 p.m. Friday.

I recently posted a list of all South Jersey athletes headed for the NCAA Division 1 Track Championships.

Turns out I missed a couple guys. A couple very impressive guys enjoying breakthrough 2024 outdoor seasons.

Mainland graduate Mawali Osunniyi, a freshman at Connecticut, is scheduled to compete in the high jump at the NCAA East First Round at 2 p.m. Friday in Lexington, Ky.

Osunniyi is tied for No. 6 freshman in NCAA Division 1 this year with a 7-1 ¼ from the UConn Northeast Challenge in Storrs back in April.

In all, he’s cleared 7-0 or better four times this year, including twice indoors. He won the indoor Big East title in Chicago with a 7-0 ¼ clearance and won the outdoor conference title at 6-11 at Villanova.

As we know from writing about Jailya Ash, UConn is one of the few Division 1 programs that doesn’t list an all-time top-10 anywhere on its web site, so we can’t tell you where Osunniyi ranks in school history. They do have media guides from 2009 through 2016 posted but none of them have all-time performance lists either.

Osunniyi only competed in the high jump one season at Mainland with a best of 6-8, which he cleared six times last spring. He played basketball in the winter and according to MileSplit his first competition ever was the 2023 Bridgeton Relays about 13 months ago. By June he was state Group 3 champ and 2nd in the Meet of Champions.

He also triple jumped 47-0 ½ in high school and was runner-up in the state Group 3 meet at Delsea. He hasn’t triple jumped yet in college, although a 47-0 ½ would have placed in the top five at the Big East meet.

Although the UConn web site is useless, we can tell from TFRRS that Osunniyi is already UConn’s best high jumper since Noel James cleared 7-1 ½ at indoor IC4As in Boston in 2012. Earlier that winter he cleared 7-3 in a meet at Penn State. But James’ best outdoor jump was a 7-0 ½ in Baton Rouge, and it appears that Osunniyi’s 7-1 ¼ is the best outdoor jump by a Huskie since at least 2010 (as far back as TFRRS goes).

I believe Osunniyi is Mainland’s first 7-footer since Paul Klemic, who cleared 7-4 1/2 – still the state record – at 2000 Outdoor Nationals in 2000. 

The other South Jersey athlete I missed is South Florida junior Gabriel Moronta, who will run on USF’s 5th-seeded 1,600-meter relay team, which ran 3:02.16 in March at the Florida Relays in Gainesville. Moronta, a transfer from Mississippi State, ran an eye-popping 400 PR of 45.81 in San Antonio two weeks ago. That’s 4th-fastest ever by a South Jersey athlete and should have qualified Moronta for the open 400 at East Regionals – it’s 17th in the East – but he wasn’t entered.

The only South Jersey athletes to run faster are Olympic gold medalists Lamont Smith [44.30 in 1996] and Dennis Mitchell [45.26 in 1986] as well as Woodbury’s Darrell Bush [45.49 in 2015].

Moronta is now under the B standard of 46.00 for the Olympic Trials next month in Eugene. He’s not far off the A standard of 45.20.

Moronta only ran one open 400 at Mississippi State and ran 46.24 in an indoor meet at Clemson in February of 2023. He focused more on the 400-meter hurdles [51.38] and 800 [1:49.33]. This spring at South Florida, he hasn’t run a single 400 hurdles race and his focus has been on the 400. Sure looks like that was the right thing to do.

South Florida races in the 4-by-4 quarterfinals at 8:45 p.m. Friday.

7-5 ¾ … Darren Burton [Delran], July 23, 1989, Ylivieska, Finland
7-5 ¼ … Mike Pascuzzo [Lenape], June 6, 1992, New York
7-4 ½ … Jim Pringle [Moorestown], March 21, 1982, Tallahassee, Fla.
7-4 ½ … Paul Klemic [Mainland Reg.], June 17, 2000, Raleigh, N.C.
7-4 ½ … Montez Blair [Timber Creek], June 23, 2013, Des Moines, Iowa
7-4 ½ … Robert Jordan [Millville], 2000
7-4 ¼ … Terrance Ferguson [Cherry Hill West], May 5, 1991, Princeton, N.J.
7-3 ¾ … Mike Morrison [Willingboro], May 14, 2005, Nashville, Tenn.
7-3 … Anthony Butler [Schalick], June 10, 2006, Colts Neck, N.J.
7-2 ¼ … Jeffrey-Jon Tucker [Eastern], April 28, 2018
7-1 ¾ … Drew Kanz [Seneca], Feb. 28, 2014, Birmingham, Ala.
7-1 ½ … Devin Bradham [Williamstown], May 3, 2019, University Park, Pa.
7-1 ½ … Mawali Osunniyi [Mainland Regional], Feb. 2, 2024, Cambridge, Mass.
7-0 ½ … Todd Lowber [Delran], May 26, 2006, Lisle, Ala.
7-0 … Kerry Vivett [Edgewood], Feb. 8, 1986, Oklahoma City

44.30 … Lamont Smith [Willingboro], June 19, 1996, Atlanta
45.26 … Dennis Mitchell [Edgewood], April 12, 1986, Tampa, Fla.
45.49 … Darrell Bush [Woodbury], April 11, 2015, Tucson, Ariz.
45.81 … Gabriel Moronta [Pleasantville], May 10, 2024, San Antonio, Texas
45.98 … Antonio Abney [Willingboro], May 29, 2010, Charlotte, N.C.
46.05 … Schefer Sherrer [Vineland], May 18, 2005, Levelland, Texas
46.13 … Brandon Outlaw [Moorestown], May 15, 2021, Raleigh, N.C.
46.19 … Maurice Ransome [Vineland], May 23-25, 1990, Naperville, Ill.
46.26 … Marvin Lewis [Willingboro], July 29, 2010, Nairobi, Kenya
46.48 … Reuben McCoy [Winslow], April 1, 2006, Atlanta

Millville senior Isaac Roberts continued his rapid progression in the high hurdles with a speedy win Wednesday at the Cape Atlantic Championships at Bridgeton.

Roberts ran a lifetime-best 14.58 and became the first Millville hurdler to win the Cape Atlantic 110 highs since Millville’s Tyreck Newman won the 2017 meet at Bridgeton in 14.52.

Roberts has improved dramatically since his junior year, when his fastest hurdles race was a 15.83 at the Cape Atlantic Championships, also at Bridgeton.

He PR’d in his opener with a 15.20 at Fast Times at Cherokee and then dropped to 14.70 in the prelims of South Jersey Elite at Delsea. So he lowered his PR from 15.83 to 14.70 – more than a second – in the span of 2 ½ weeks.

Wednesday was a final by time with no prelims and Roberts dropped another chunk of time down to 14.58, which makes him 7th-fastest in South Jersey this year.

Oakcrest senior Clayton Husta ran 14.99 for 2nd place, and Mainland junior Josiah Williams PR’d with a 15.08 for 3rd. Husta is No. 9 in New Jersey with his 14.33 from South Jersey Elite. Husta is No. 2 in New Jersey Group 2 behind Willingboro senior Eric Foster, who ran 13.99 at South Jersey Elite. Williams, whose previous PR was a 15.14 at the Atlantic County Championships last week at Buena, is now the No. 5 junior in South Jersey this year.

There are close finishes, and then there’s this.

I’ve been around track and field forever and I’ve never seen anything like it.

In the boys 400-meter hurdles at the Tri-County Conference Championships at Delsea, the first four runners all finished within 11-100ths of a second.

That means a total of 30 inches separated Clayton junior Alexander Osayemi, Salem junior
Anthony Parker, Highland senior Cortland Webb and Triton senior Angel Gonzalez at the end of a race that’s about a quarter of a mile long.

Osayemi won the race in 55.20, finishing 6-100ths of a second (about 15 inches) ahead of Parker, who ran 55.26. He finished 1-100th of a second – about 2 ½ inches – ahead of Webb, who ran 55.27 and finished 4-100ths of a second – about 10 inches – ahead of Gonzalez, who ran 55.31.

All four PR’d.

Osayemi dropped his PR more than 1 ½ seconds from 56.79, Parker dropped from 56.09, Webb’s previous PR was 56.26 so he took a second off, and Gonzalez dropped from 56.01.

Their times are No. 6, No. 8, No. 9 and No. 10 in South Jersey this year.

Incredibly, the six-fastest Group 1 intermediate hurdlers in the state are all from South Jersey: Riverside senior Jamir Brown [53.69], Glassboro senior Cartrell Moore [54.11], Palmyra senior Abdulazeez Iyiola [54.32], Gloucester’s Jaden Garris [54.35], and then Osayemi and Parker.

Norfolk State freshman Premier Wynn from Pennsauken advanced to the 2nd round of the NCAA Division 1 Championships in the 400-meter hurdles Wednesday.

Wynn ran 51.43 at the NCAA East First Round in Lexington, Ky., and advanced to the quarterfinals, which are scheduled for 7:25 p.m. Friday. The top 12 finishers there and the top 12 in the West Regional in Fayetteville, Ark., advance to the NCAA Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., June 5-8.

Wynn’s 51.43 is off his PR of 50.72 that he ran at the MEAC Championships earlier this month in Norfolk, but it was a slow race in general run in humid and rainy conditions. Only four of the 47 starters PR’d.

Wynn’s high school teammate, Rutgers freshman Bryce Tucker, missed qualifying as did Rutgers senior Micah Wood of Rancocas Valley, who ran 51.79 and came up just 7-100ths of a second short of advancing to the next round.

Wynn and Tucker are both eligible for the USATF Under 20 Championships, which determines the U.S. team for the World Under-20 Championships in Lima, Peru, in August.

Timber Creek junior Ryan Jennings ran one of the fastest 100-meter dash times in state history Wednesday at the Tri-County Championships at Delsea.

Jennings won the race in 11.56, fastest in New Jersey this year – 1-100th of a second faster than the 11.57 her teammate, Naylah Jones, ran at the Camden County Championships at Haddon Township last week.

Jennings’ time is 5th-fastest in state history and No. 3 in South Jersey history behind legendary Michele Glover of Willingboro, who ran 11.42 at the 1981 TAC Junior Nationals at UCLA, and Olympic gold medalist English Gardner of Eastern, who ran 11.49 at the 2008 state Group 4 meet at South Plainfield.

It’s fastest by a New Jersey sprinter in 14 years, since Paramus Catholic’s Myasia Jacobs ran 11.44 to place 2nd at 2010 Greensboro Nationals.

The only other New Jersey who’s run faster than Jennings is Trenton’s Wendy Vereen, who ran 11.50 in the semifinals of the 1984 U.S. Olympic Trials at Los Angeles Coliseum [just ahead of Glover, who ran 11.61].

Timber Creek becomes the first school in New Jersey history with two girls under 11.60 at any point. And they did it about a week apart.

Montclair came close with M’elisa Barber [11.57 in 1998] and Aleah Williams [11.65 in 1999], who were part of Montclair’s 1998 Penn Relays Championship of America 400-meter relay 2nd-place finish and state-record 45.50.

Jennings broke the meet record of a hand-timed 11.6 set by Deptford’s Audrey Wilson at Delsea in 2008.

With Pennsauken sophomore Sianni Wynn at 11.65 from South Jersey Elite at Delsea, more South Jersey girls have run 11.65 or faster in the past three weeks than in the previous 23 years.

Jennings also won the 200 in 24.36. Jones didn’t run the 100 or 200 Tuesday but won the 400 in 56.36, with teammate Chloe Jones 2nd in 57.16.

Although Jennings’ time won’t be eligible for some record lists because there wasn’t a wind guage being used, on the all-time South Jersey alumni list it’s 9th-fastest all-time:

10.74 … English Gardner [Eastern], July 3, 2016, Eugene, Ore. [+1.0]
11.10 … Dennisha Page [Wilson], May 11, 2024, Gainesville, Fla.
11.21 … Nia Ali [Pleasantville], April 13, 2024, Gainesville, Fla. [+1.2]
11.29 … Amandi Rhett [Moorestown], April 17, 2005, Walnut, Calif. [+0.4]
11.31 … Torie Robinson [Winslow Twp.], May 14, 2017, Atlanta [+0.8]
11.32 … Gabrielle Farquharson [Williamstown], May 14, 2016, Lincoln, Neb. [+1.6]
11.36 … Michele Glover [Willingboro], May 6, 1984, Houston [+1.7]
11.52 … Bria Mack [Williamstown], May 12, 2018, Knoxville, Tenn. [+0.5]
11.56 … Ryan Jennings [Timber Creek], May 22, 2024, Franklinville [NWI]
11.57 … Naylah Jones [Timber Creek], April 12, 2024, Marlton [NWI]

ALL-TIME NEW JERSEY 100-METER DASH LIST
11.42 … Michele Glover [Willingboro], 1981
11.44 … Myasia Jacobs [Paramus Catholic], 2010
11.49 … English Gardner [Eastern], 2008
11.50 … Wendy Vereen [Trenton], 1984
11.56 … Ryan Jennings [Timber Creek], 2024
11.57 … Patti Dunlap [Camden], 1979
11.57 … M’elisa Barber [Montclair], 1998
11.57 … Jada Ellis [Manchster Twp.], 2021
11.57 … Naylah Jones [Timber Creek], 2024
11.58 … Bria Mack [Williamstown], 2017

ALL-TIME SOUTH JERSEY 100-METER DASH LIST
11.42 … Michele Glover [Willingboro], 1981
11.49 … English Gardner [Eastern], 2008
11.56 … Ryan Jennings [Timber Creek], 2024
11.57 … Patti Dunlap [Camden], 1979
11.57 … Naylah Jones [Timber Creek], 2024
11.58 … Bria Mack [Williamstown], 2017
11.61 … Amandi Rhett [Moorestown], 2000
11.63 … Dennisha Page [Woodrow Wilson], 2019
11.65 … Sianni Wynn [Pennsauken], 2024
11.66 … Lauren Princz [Egg Harbor Twp.], 2021

Rancocas Valley graduate Kevin Burr, who never picked up a javelin until 13 months ago, qualified for the NCAA Championships on Wednesday with a nine-foot PR.

Burr, a true freshman at Tenneessee, had the 6th-best throw at the NCAA East First Round in Lexington, Ky., Wednesday with a 234-6. The top 12 in each of two regions advance to the NCAA Championships. Of 96 qualifiers in the two regions, Burr’s 234-6 was 13th-best.

The 102nd annual NCAA Division 1 Championships are scheduled for June 5-8 at Hayward Field on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene.

Burr’s previous PR was 225-0, which he threw at both the University of Central Florida Black & Gold Invite in Orlando in his first college meet and again at the Desert Heat Classic in Tucson late last month.

He opened with a PR 228-0 and then hit 234-6 on his 2nd attempt and 226-4 on his 3rd, so he had the three-best throws of his life back-to-back-to-back. Any of the three would have qualified him for NCAAs. The cutoff in the East First Round was 223-7 and 226-0 in the West.

Burr broke Tennessee’s freshman javelin record of 232-10 set in 2001 by Leigh Smith in Columbia, S.C. Overall, his throw is No. 7 in Volunteers history and the best throw since Kyle Quinn’s 240-0 in a meet at Conway, S.C., in 2016.

Burr didn’t throw 150 feet last year until the Burlington County Open in mid-May and PR’d with a 204-4 when he placed 2nd at the Meet of Champions.

His throw is No. 7 in South Jersey history and No. 11 on the all-time New Jersey performance list. He’s just short of the Rancocas Valley alumni record of 236-5 set in Austin in 2019 by Nick Mirabelli.

His 234-6 ranks 31st among U.S. men this year and is the best throw by a freshman in NCAA Division 1 this year. He was the only freshman in either region to advance to NCAAs.

It’s not clear whether Burr has Under-20 eligibility, but if his 20th birthday is after midnight on Dec. 31, he would instantly become among the favorites at the U.S. Under-20 Championships next month in Eugene. The meet selects the U.S. team for World Under-20s in Lima, Peru, in August.

Burr has surpassed the B standard for Olympic Trials qualifying, which means he’d qualify if he’s among the top 24 entries even without the A stanadard of 246-0 ¾.

287-9 … Curtis Thompson [Florence], July 4, 2016, Eugene, Ore.
261-2 … Vince Labosky [Holy Cross], June 15, 1990, Norwalk, Calif.
261-2 … Tim VanLiew [Deptford], May 21, 2016, Tucson, Ariz.
251-6 … Chris Mirabelli [Holy Cross], April 29, 2017, Philadelphia
249-9 … Cade Antonucci [Holy Spirit], June 9, 2021, Eugene, Ore.
236-5 … Nick Mirabelli [Rancocas Valley], March 27-30, 2019, Austin, Texas
234-6 … Kevin Burr [Rancocas Valley], March 15, Orlando, Fla.
214-6 … Sean Biehn [Burlington City], May 8, 2010, Ewing, N.J.
213-2 … Edgar Rosa [Paulsboro], April 8, 2023, Glassboro, N.J.
212-2 … Alexander Georgiou [Timber Creek], 2017