From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

What a start to Leah Howard’s college career!

Howard, a Texas Tech freshman from Millville, threw 159-9 on her final attempt Saturday to win the Masked Rider Open at Texas Tech in Lubbock. Howard also had a 157-6 in her series. She won by 5 ½ feet over Bruna Veira de Jesus of New Mexico Junior College of Hobbs, N.M.

Howard’s throw is No. 5 in the NCAA Division 1 among freshmen and it’s No. 4 in the Big 12. It’s listed as No. 17 among U.S. women on World Athletics, although they’ve been slow to update the database lately.

Howard has a PR of 163-1 from last year’s Woodbury Relays. That’s No. 2 in state history behind Oakcrest’s Brielle Smith, who threw 168-6 at Woodbury in 2019.

Texas Tech has a tremendous women’s javelin tradition, with two NCAA champions and 22 All-Americans.

Howard began her career with a win a week earlier at the Wes Kittley Invitational at Abilene Christian. She threw 152-7 on her 5th attempt and also had a 151-6 on her first throw – her very first college throw.

World Athletics does not list a birth date for Howard, but she is likely eligible for U.S. Under 20 Championships in Eugene in June, which is the qualifier for World Juniors in Lima, Peru, in August.

Athletes who don’t turn 20 before midnight Dec. 31, 2024, are eligible. Most college freshmen meet the eligibility requirement.

Gabriel Moronta, in his first outdoor 400 since he was at Pleasantville High School, moved into the all-time South Florida top-10 with a hot race on his new home track in Tampa.

Moronta, who spent the 2021 indoor season through the 2023 indoor season at Mississippi State and recorded some brilliant 800 and 400 hurdles performances, has resurfaced at USF and opened his outdoor season with a 46.55 at the USF Bulls Alumni Invitational.

That’s an outdoor PR and No. 6 in school history.

Moronta never ran a flat 400 outdoors at Mississippi State, although he ran 46.24 indoors in February of 2023 at Clemson. That’s 8th-fastest ever by a South Jersey runner, and that was actually his final race for MSU.

Moronta lost his senior year of outdoor track to COVID, and the 46.55 was his first outdoor 400 since June 1, 2019, when he ran 49.68 at the state Group 2 meet at Central Regional.

At Mississippi State, Moronta ranks 4th in school history in the indoor 400 with his 46.24. He ran 51.38 in the intermediates at the 2022 Southeastern Conference Championships in Oxford, Miss., and 1:49.33 at the 2021 SEC meet in College Station, Texas.

On the all-time South Jersey list, he’s 10th in the 800 with the 1:49.33 and 12th in the 400 hurdles in addition to 8th in the 400.

Moronta hasn’t run a 400 hurdles race since since he ran that 51.38 PR nearly two years ago.

Moronta ranks 20th in NCAA Division 1 so far this spring with his 46.55.

With PRs of 46.24 and 1:49.33, Moronta is the only middle-distance runner on both the all-time South Jersey 400 and 800 lists. Jaymes Dennison is close at No. 15 with 46.90 for 400 meters in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2018, and No. 5 with 1:47.63 in Tempe, Ariz., in 2017.

Rancocas Valley’s Kristina Tossas, a junior at Rutgers, opened her 2024 season with some big jumps Saturday at the Knights Invitational at Central Florida in Orlando.

Tossas hit a lifetime-best 20-11 ½ on her final jump, although that was wind-aided. But she did have a wind-legal 20-1 ¼ on her 3rd attempt

Teammate Celine Brown from Plainfield won with a 21-0 ½ that was also wind-aided. She had a legal 20-2.

For Tossas, the 20-1 ¼ is only a few inches shy of her wind-legal outdoor PR of 20-5 set last March in a meet in Orlando last March.

Tossas was the Big East long jump champ last winter in Geneva, Ohio, with her lifetime-best 20-9. She was 3rd this past spring.

Tossas is No. 4 in Rutgers history outdoors and No. 3 indoors. She’s also No. 9 in the triple jump indoors at 39-6, although she only triple jumped once indoors.

 

At 35 years old and a decade and a half as an elite athlete, Nia Ali decided to try a new event.

Ali, a Pleasantville graduate, 2016 Olympic silver medalist and 2019 World Champion, is one of the top hurdlers in world history. But she’s also versatile enough that she was once an All-America heptathlon at Tennessee before transferring to USC to focus on the hurdles.

On Saturday, she decided to try her hand at an event she had never contested – the 100-meter dash.

Competing at the Hurricane Collegiate Invitational in Coral Gables, Fla., Ali won the 100 in 11.41, edging Olympian Liang Xiaojing of the Peoples Republic of China, who ran 11.42.

The shortest race in a heptathlon is 200 meters, and Ali has a PR of 23.90 from a heptathlon in Fayetteville, Ark., back in 2009. But even at Pleasantville she never ran an open 100, although she did win the South Jersey Group 2 meet in the 200 in 2006 at Buena in 24.12, which 18 years later is still 9th-fastest in South Jersey.

While 11.41 might not be quite world class, it does put her at No. 4 among U.S. women so far this spring and is fastest by a woman 35 or older since Tianna Madison ran 11.09 at the 2021 Olympic Trials in Eugene. Madison was 142 days older than Ali was Saturday (13,077 days vs. 12,935 days). Madison was a World Champion in the long jump and an Olympic gold medalist in the 400-meter relay. She also attended the University of Tennessee.

Her 11.41 is also 7th-fastest ever by a South Jersey woman:

10.74 … English Gardner [Eastern], July 3, 2016, Eugene, Ore.
11.29 … Amandi Rhett [Moorestown], April 17, 2005, Walnut, Calif.
11.30 … Dennisha Page [Wilson], May 13, 2023, Bloomington, Ind.
11.31 … Torie Robinson [Winslow Twp.], May 14, 2017, Atlanta
11.32 … Gabrielle Farquharson [Williamstown], May 14, 2016, Lincoln, Neb.
11.36 … Michele Glover [Willingboro], May 6, 1984, Houston
11.41 … Nia Ali [Pleasantville], May 23, 2024, Coral Gables, Fla.
11.52 … Bria Mack [Williamstown], May 12, 2018, Knoxville, Tenn. [+0.5]
11.65 … Shardae Anderson [Paulsboro], April 14, 2007, Chapel Hill, N.C. [+1.1]
11.66 … Lauren Princz [Egg Harbor Twp.], June 19, 2021, South Plainfield, N.J. [+1.0]

On Saturday, Ali also found time to win her primary event, placing 1st in the 100-meter hurdles in 12.86 in her first outdoor hurdles race this year. Ali is No. 9 in world history and No. 3 all-time among U.S. athletes with her 12.30 from Monaco this past July. She won her first outdoor U.S. title in July in Eugene with a 12.37 two weeks earlier.

Rancocas Valley graduate Micah Wood, a Rutgers grad student, ran a huge intermediate hurdles PR Friday in his 2024 outdoor season opener.

Wood placed 2nd in the 400IH at the UCF Knights Invite at the University of Central Florida Track and Soccer Complex in Orlando in 51.42. Jameson Woodell, a Rutgers grad student from Hunterdon Central, won the race in 51.14.

Wood’s previous PR was a 52.35 in his last outdoor race – at the Big Ten Championships in May in Bloomington, Ind.

Woodell is the Rutgers school record holder at 49.82 from the 2022 NCAA East Prelims, also in Bloomington.

Wood’s time is No. 7 in Rutgers history. He’s one of four South Jersey runners on that top-10 list: Delsea’s Aaron Younger is No. 2 with his 50.65 at 2010 NCAA Regionals in Greensboro, N.C.; Lenape’s Steve Swern No. 8 with a 51.68 at 2010 IC4As in Princeton; and Delran’s Harran Williams No. 10 with 52.19 from 2002 IC4As at Princeton.

Wood is also No. 8 on the all-time Monmouth list with a 52.91 from his win at the 2021 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships in Lawrenceville. He transferred from Monmouth to Rutgers after the 2021 outdoor season.

That 51.42 is No. 13 on the all-time South Jersey alumni list and No. 2 among Burlington County runners behind Lenape’s Mike Brown, who ran 50.04 in 2002 in Holmdel.

Georgia Tech’s Isabella Turner, a junior from Shawnee, ran a 1,500 PR Friday afternoon.

Turner won her section of the 1,500 at the Florida State University Relays at Mike Long in Tallahassee in 4:43.94, finishing 50 meters ahead of second place. She placed 9th overall.

Turner’s previous PR was a 4:46.93 just last week at a home meet at Georgia Tech’s George C. Griffin Track in Atlanta.

Before the past week, her 1,500 PR was 4:55.26 from a meet last March in Tallahassee. So she’s lowered her PR nearly 12 seconds since last weekend.

Winslow graduate John Purvis, now a junior at Marshall after spending his freshman year at Morgan State, uncorked a hammer PR Thursday in a meet at the Florida State Relays in Tallahassee, Fla.

Purvis threw 164-0 on his 2nd throw to surpass his lifetime-best 163-6 from a meet at Towson as a Morgan State freshman in 2022.

Purvis threw the shot 55-7 at Morgan State when he placed 2nd at the MEAC indoor Championships in Virginia Beach two years ago and he has a discus PR of 152-7 from a meet last spring in Durham, N.C. He hasn’t thrown the discus yet for Marshall, although he’s scheduled to on Friday.

Erika Kemp ran a 10,000 PR to open her 2024 season Saturday at The Ten – that’s the name of the meet, The Ten – in Southern California.

Kemp ran 31:28.69 at JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, shaving seven seconds off her lifetime-best of 31:35.63 set on the same track during a December 2020 meet – her only race between the onset of COVID in March 2020 and the following March.

After focusing on the roads the last couple years, it was her first race on the track in nearly three years, and it locks up her Olympic Trials qualifying time.

Her time is No. 38 in U.S. history, according to the World Athletics database and No. 13 in the world this year. She finished 13th in a world-class field and 8th among U.S. women.

Kemp’s time is No. 2 ever by a New Jersey alum, behind Marielle Hall of Haddonfield, who ran 31:05.71 at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar.

This was Kemp’s first race since January, when she ran a half-marathon PR 1:09.10 in Houston, and her first race on the track since May of 2021, when she ran a PR 4:16.41 for 1,500 meters at Icahn Stadium in New York.

Here’s my best attempt at an all-time New Jersey 10,000 top-10 list (actually a sub-33:30 list):

31:05.71 … Marielle Hall [Haddonfield], Sept. 28, 2019, Doha, Qatar
31:28.69 … Erika Kemp [Rancocas Valley], Dec. 5, 2020, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
31:37.26 … Anne Marie Lauck [North Hunterdon], Aug. 21, 1993, Stuttgart, Germany
31:51.66 … Sarah Pagano [Immaculate Heart Academy], May 2, 2019, Palo Alto, Calif.
32:52.74 … Amy Van Alstine [Midland Park], June 13, 2015, Portland, Ore.
32:54.07 … Monica Hebner [Northern Highlands], May 25, 2023, Sacramento, Calif.
32:58.73 … Katie Kellner [West Windsor-Plainsboro South], April 6, 2012, Palo Alto, Calif.
33:05.13 … Janet Smith [Bernards], June 2, 1988, Eugene, Ore.
33:07.10 … Megan Lacy [Cherokee], May 28, 2021, Portland, Ore.
33:15.95 … Meghan McGlinchey [West Deptford], April 4, 2014, Palo Alto, Calif.
33:18.99 … Melody Fairchild [Ocean City], April 13, 1996, Eugene, Ore.
33:23.12 … Amanda Goetschius [Delsea], March 26, 2010, Palo Alto, Calif.
33:24.79 … Megan Curham [Villa Walsh], May 10, 2014, New Haven, Ct.

And here’s what I came up with for an all-time South Jersey 10,000 list:

31:05.71 … Marielle Hall [Haddonfield], Sept. 28, 2019, Doha, Qatar
31:28.69 … Erika Kemp [Rancocas Valley], Dec. 5, 2020, San Juan Capistrano, Calif.
33:07.10 … Megan Lacy [Cherokee], May 28, 2021, Portland, Ore.
33:15.95 … Meghan McGlinchey [West Deptford], April 4, 2014, Palo Alto, Calif.
33:18.99 … Melody Fairchild [Ocean City], April 13, 1996, Eugene, Ore,
33:23.12 … Amanda Goetschius [Delsea], March 26, 2010, Palo Alto, Calif.
33:27.41 … Laura Mason [Northern Burlington], April 27, 1995, Philadelphia
34:27.85 … Jenna Darcy [Shawnee], March 31, 2006, Palo Alto, Calif.
34:30.63 … Kylie Anicic [Kingsway], March 23, 2023, Raleigh, N.C.
34:34.91 … Katie Van Horn [Triton], March 20, 2007, Palo Alto, Calif.

Delsea graduate Jason Nwosu, a William and Mary sophomore, opened the 2024 outdoor season with a big PR, winning the Dan Stimson Memorial Invitational with the No. 4 throw in school history.

Nwosu threw 56-5 ¼ on his 3rd throw as part of a triple throws win at his home facility in Williamsburg, Va.

His previous PR with the 16-pound ball was 55-2 at the same meet last year. His 56-5 ¼ is the best throw by a William and Mary athlete in five years, since Preston Richardson threw a school-record 60-3 ¼ at the Penn Relays and K.J. Cook threw 57-0 at a home meet in Williamsburg.

Nwosu also won the discus at 146-6 and the hammer throw with a 166-2. He’s thrown 157-10 in the disc – that’s No. 10 in school history – but the 166-2 is a hammer PR. He threw 165-5 in April in a meet in Williamsburg.

Indoors, Nwosu is No. 11 in William and Mary history with a 53-1 ½ in Februry of 2023 in a meet in Blacksburg, Va., and No. 5 in the weight throw with a 61-2 ¼ last month in a meet in Annapolis, Md.

The Sharpe triplets were back in action Saturday, competing at the same meet for the first time in almost a year.

Racing at the Yellow Jacket Invitational at Georgia Tech’s George C. Griffin Track in Atlanta, Arianna Sharpe won the 200 in 24.20 and the 400 in 53.40, Amirah Sharpe was 2nd in the 400 in 53.90 and 3rd in the 200 in 24.60 and Ariel Sharpe placed 4th in the 400 in 57.93 but didn’t race the 200. (Even though they don’t look like it, all the times are FAT.)

Ariel Sharpe competed Saturday for Auburn, where she’s a sophomore. Amirah and Arianna competed unattatched, although it appears likely they still attend Auburn.

All three triplets, who led both Paulsboro and Clayton to state Group 1 championships, began competing for Auburn as freshmen last year indoors.

Arianna ran 24.51 and 52.42 indoors and 24.64 and 54.54 outdoors. Amirah ran 53.37 indoors last year and then 24.23 and 53.44 outdoors. Ariel ran 58.14 indoors and 57.37 outdoors.

Arianni is No. 3 in Auburn history in the indoor 400 and Amirah is No. 9 in the 400 outdoors. Her 52.42 is the fastest 400 ever by an Auburn freshman.

Click to access 2023_Almanac.pdf

This past indoor season, Amirah Sharpe didn’t race at all, Arianna competed in one meet in Nashville in February unattached and ran 24.30 and 53.91 and Ariel ran two meets with an Auburn affiliation.

So Saturday’s meet was Amirah Sharpe’s first since NCAA East Preliminaries in May in Jacksonville, Ariannia’s second since NCAA East Prelims and Ariel’s third since a meet in Tuscaloosa in April of 2023.

It was the first meet all three have raced at since that Crimson Tide Invitational last April 21 and 22 at Alabama.

The Sharpe triplets’ dad, Fred Sharpe, starred at Paulsboro and was a two-time All-America for Auburn in 20023.