From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

Eastern graduate Jailya Ash opened her indoor season with the 2nd-fastest hurdles time in UConn history.

Ash, a sophomore at Connecticut, ran a personal-best 8.27 to win the 60-meter hurdles Friday at the UConn Husky Challenge in Storrs.

Ash came into the meet with a PR of 8.31 from a meet in Boston in December of 2022. She went on to win the Big East title in Chicago in 8.35 and won the outdoor Big East in 13.58 at Villanova in her last meet until Friday.

In the prelims, Ash ran 8.44 and was 2nd-fastest into the finals behind Aliyah Thomas, a Union Catholic graduate and UConn junior running unattatched. Thomas was an NCAA qualifier in the 100-meter highs last spring and is a 21-7 ¾ long jumper.

In the final, Ash edged Thomas 8.27 to 8.38.

It’s awfully early, but through the first weekend of the indoor season and Day 1 of the second weekend, Ash ranks No. 4 in NCAA Division 1 with her 8.27 on the updated TFRRS performance list.

UConn hasn’t updated its track web site records section in eight years (come on, UConn Sports Info! Get your act together!), but when Ash started running hot times for the Huskies, I went through years of results and came up with my own all-time UCOnn 60-meter hurdles performance list.

I’m pretty sure this is accurate:

8.24 … Phylicia George, 2010
8.27 … Jailya Ash, 2024
8.33 … April Garner, 2005
8.41 … Aliyah Thomas, 2023
8.45 … Madalayne Smith, 2012
8.55 … Chantal Scott, 2014
8.59 … Emily Lavarnway, 2023
8.61 … Shavon Briscoe, 2012
8.61 … Tia Strackman, 2018
8.62 … Ashley Wiggins, 2017

Sterling graduate Jah’Mere Beasley, a nine-time All-America during his years at Rowan, has resurfaced at Rutgers and placed 4th in the season-opening Rutgers Holiday Classic in his first race wearing a Scarlet Knights singlet.

Beasley ran 6.94 in the 60 meters at the Armory, finishing behind teammates James Bivins from Donovan Catholic in Toms River and Chris Serrao of East Brunswick, the 2022 Meet of Champions 110 hurdles champ, as well as Monmouth’s Alex Kislenko from Fair Lawn. All four placed within 4-100ths of a second of each other.

Beasley has a PR of 6.89, which he ran twice while at Rowan – at the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships at Ocean Breeze in 2022 and then a few weeks later at the All-Atlantic Regional Championships in Rochester.

Beasley ran 10.55, 21.00 and 47.86 outdoors while at Rowan.

The fastest 60 time ever by a Rutgers sprinter from South Jersey is 6.85 by Pemberton’s Bobby Orro at the 1999 IC4A Championships in Boston. Orro was the 1993 Meet of Champions winner in the 100 at 10.66.

Interesting that Beasley’s long-time NJAC rival Cheickna Traore, a three-time NCAA Division 3 champ for Ramapo and D-3 record holder at 200 meters with a 20.25, also transferred out of the NJAC and is now a grad student at Penn State. So once again, Beasley and Traore are in the same conference.

Stockton senior Khristina Washington from Hammonton opened her season with a triple jump PR at the Fastrack Season Opener at Ocean Breeze.

Washington leaped 36-4 on her final attempt to move from 8th to 3rd. She opened with two fouls, 35-0 ½, 33-8 ½, 35-2 ½ before closing with a new PR.

Her previous wind-legal jump was a 36-3 ½ outdoors at Widener this past April. She had a wind-aided 35-4 ¾ when she won the New Jersey Athletic Conference meet in Mahwah in May. Her previous indoor PR was a 35-1 ¼ when she placed 2nd at last year’s indoor NJAC meet at Ocean Breeze.

Her 36-4 ranks No. 18 through opening weekend in NCAA Division 3 and No. 1 in the NJAC.

Washington also placed 6th in the long jump with a 16-7 ¾. She has a long jump PR of 17-6 ¼, also from last year’s outdoor NJAC meet, where she placed 2nd. Her indoor long jump PR is 17-2 ¾ from a meet this past January at the Armory.

Washington is tied for No. 1 in the early going in the NJAC in the long jump. Teammate Emma Petrolia from New Milford also jumped 16-7 ¾ at Ocean Breeze on Friday.

Rowan’s women’s 1,600-meter relay team – Nevaeh Lorjuste, Molly Lodge, Kathleen Pederson and Jasmine Broadway – ran the fastest time in NCAA Division 1 on the opening weekend of the indoor track season.

The Profs ran 3:53.48 at the Fastrack Season Opener at Ocean Breeze, winning by 10 meters over St. Joe’s, which placed 2nd in 3:55.13.

Lorjuste is a sophomore from Triton, Lodge a sophomore from Woodstown, Pederson a senior from Hillsborough and Broadway a sophomore from Burlington Township.

Lorjuste opened with a 58.78 to put the Profs in the lead, and Lodge split 59.94, delivering the baton to Pederson in a virtual dead heat with Adelphia, which got a 57.74 split from its second runner. Pederson passed Adelphi’s third runner, and St. Joe’s moved into 2nd with a 58.71 leg by junior Jessica Rubio from Clifton High.

Rowan led by 35-100ths going into the anchor legs, but Broadway left no doubt with a 55.99 anchor. St. Joe’s anchor – another New Jersey alum, senior Maris Rodriguez of Academy of the Holy Angels – split 57.29 anchoring for St. Joe’s.

Although Rowan’s web site lists the school record as 3:52.57, they actually ran faster than that three times last year.

The Rowan women set the real school record of 3:50.39 this past March when they placed 8th at the NCAA Championships in Birmingham, Ala. Rowan also had a 3:50.98 at last year’s Fasttrack Last Chance Meet at Ocean Breeze last February and a 3:51.16 at the Armory in March in the All-Atlantic Conference Championships.

Lorjuste, Lodge, Pederson and Broadway ran on all of those teams.

So the 3:52.57 that Rowan lists as its school record is at best 4th best in school history.

No other Division 3 school ran under 3:55 opening weekend. MIT has the 2nd-fastest time in D-3 with a 3:56.78 at Boston University on Saturday.

Delsea graduate Nico Morales began his junior year with an indoor pole vault PR and the No. 5 mark in Rutgers history.

Morales cleared 16-6 Friday at the Rutgers Holiday Classic at the Armory, where he placed 2nd to Rutgers freshman Brian O’Sullivan, who cleared 17-1 ¾ in his first collegiate meet. O’Sullivan won the Meet of Champions last spring at 16-6 ½, his previous PR.

If the results are accurate, Morales only took two jumps – clearing 16-2 on his first attempt and 16-6 on his first attempt, then shutting down. The bar moved up to 16-10, but Morales did not take any attempts there.

Morales’ previous indoor best was a 16-0 ¾ at the 2002 Battle in Beantown at Boston University. He didn’t compete indoors last year, so this was his first indoor meet since the 2022 Big Ten Championships at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.

Morales has a lifetime best of 16-9 ½ from the Penn Relays at Franklin Field this past April.

At Delsea, Morales cleared 15-6 indoors and 15-7 outdoors. Twin brother Marco cleared 16-0 indoors and 15-6 outdoors. He competed for Rutgers in two meets in the spring of 2021 before retiring from track.

Anthony Vazquez ran a hurdles PR in Syracuse’s season-opening meet Saturday in Ithaca.

Vazquez, an Egg Harbor Township graduate, ran 7.94 and won the 60-meter highs at the Greg Page Relays and Multis at legendary Barton Hall on Cornell’s campus.

Vazquez, a junior, edged teammate Emanuel Joseph by 5-100ths of a second. Deptford grad Naseem Smith, a Syracuse senior, was 4th in 8.06, not far off his PR of 8.00, which he ran in the trials.

For Vazquez, the 7.94 was a PR of 1-100th of a second. He ran 7.95 at the same meet last year.

In the prelims, Vazquez was only 3rd-fastest at 8.03, behind Toronto junior David Adeleye [7.93] and Joseph [8.00]. Adeleye ran 7.99 in the final.

Vazquez’s time is No. 14 in NCAA Division 1 through the first weekend of indoor activity. Princeton’s Greg Foster from Lumberton and Lawrenceville Prep is No. 10 at 7.92.

Lumberton’s Greg Foster opened his sophomore year at Princeton with a near PR in the 60- meter hurdles.

Foster ran 7.92 and outraced teammate Easton Tan to win the hurdles at the TCNJ Indoor Opener at the Armory.

Foster led all qualifiers with a 7.99 in the trials, with Tan running 8.10, just off his PR of 8.09.

Foster is No. 3 in Princeton history with his 7.89 at the Harvard-Yale-Princeton tri-meet in Cambridge, Mass., last January. He was the Ivy League long jump champ and competed in the long jump at NCAAs last year but didn’t contest either horizontal jump on Saturday. With his 26-1 ¾ last year Foster was ranked No. 14 among U.S. men.

On the all-time Princeton list, Foster trails Christian Brown [7.76 at the Dr. Sander Invite at the Armory in 2022] and Canadian Joey Daniels [7.77 at Heps in Ithaca in 2020].

Moorestown’s Kate Inglis, a junior at Catholic, ran a huge mile PR Saturday at the TCNJ Indoor Opener at the Armory.

Inglis placed 3rd in 5:09.23 off a 2:40.29 first half mile. That means she came back in 2:28.54, closing in 33.69.

Inglis’s previous mile PR was a 5:24.08 in a meet in March of 2022 in Winchester, Va. Inglis didn’t run indoor track at Moorestown. Her outdoor PR for 1,600 meters was 5:20.47 when she won the BCSL Liberty Division title in 2021 at Pennsauken.

Last month, Inglis placed 6th in the NCAA Division 3 South Region XC Championships. Last spring, she was the Landmark Conference steeplechase champion and 1,500 runner-up

Mainland Regional junior Sofia Day placed 11th out of 150 runners Saturday morning in the championship race at the RunningLane Cross Country Championships.

Day ran 18:05.4 over 5,000 meters at John Hunt Running Park in Huntsville, Ala. She was out in a very fast  5:35, which put her 19th through the mile, but she moved up to 12th at the two-mile mark and despite the hot early pace she moved up another spot over the final 1.1 miles.

Day, the state Group 3 champ at 800 meters indoors as a sophomore, placed 7th last nonth in the Meet of Champions in 18:34 at Holmdel County Park.

Evelyn Prodoehl of Lakota West High in West Chester, Ohio, outside Cincinnati was the overall winner in 17:32.8.

Isabelle Deal, a three-time All-America at Ursinus, has resurfaced as a senior at Rowan and in her first meet for the Profs the Washington Township High School graduate won the shot put at the FastTrack National Invitational at Ocean Breeze.

Deal last competed in May at the NCAA Division 3 Championships in Rochester, N.Y., and placed 6th in the javelin with a 139-9 throw.

On Friday on Staten Island, she won the shot put with a 41-0 ½ on her 5th attempt. Her indoor PR and Ursinus school record is 42-6 ½, which she threw this past March at the All-Atlantic Region Track and Field Championships at the Armory. Her outdoor PR is 43-4 ½ from last May at the Centennial Conference Championships in Collegeville, Pa.

http://milesplit.live/meets/583096/events/33/results/F/F

Rowan’s indoor shot put record is 42-8 which was set by Pemberton graduate Kyanna Hawkins Deravin in December of 2014 at the New Years Invitational at Princeton’s Jadwin Gym in Hawkins Deravin’s first collegiate meet.

Overbrook graduate Angela Solomon set the outdoor record of 43-2 at the 1991 New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships in Ewing.