From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

The top-seeded Rowan 1,600-meter relay team cruised into the finals of the 1,600-meter relay at the NCAA Division 3 Championship in Wisconsin.

The Profs, with three South Jersey legs, ran 3:11.35 and will race in the final at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Rowan ranks No. 1 in NCAA Division 3 with its 3:08.97 in a meet at Widener in Chester, Pa., last week.

Freshman Marquis Taylor from Woodbury and sophomore Samuel Agbessi from Sterling ran the first two legs, junior  Teddy Wilson from Toms River North split 48.26 on the 3^rd leg and junior Dallas Hohney from Glassboro anchored in 46.42.

Rowan has the option of using freshman Rajhan Dixon, the NCAA Division 3 indoor 200 champ, in the final.

The College of New Jersey also advanced for the final with a 3:11.76, giving the New Jersey Athletic Conference two qualifiers.

Rowan’s Eli Hendricks, a junior from Penns Groec, Rajahn Dixon, a sophomore from Eastern, and Evan Corcoran, a senior from Kingsway, were all among the five-fastest qualifiers Thursday for the final in the 200-meter dash trials at the NCAA Division 3 Championships in Wisconsin.

Hendricks ran 20.99 into a 1.5-meters-per-second headwind and was the 2^nd-fastest qualifier, Dixon ran 21.06 into a 0.5 headwind and was 3^rd-fastest and Corcoran ran 21.25 with a 1.1 headwind.

All three won their heats and advanced to the final as “large-Q” qualifiers. The final is scheduled for 4:50 p.m. Saturday at Veterans Memorial Stadium in La Crosse, Wisc.

Hendricks was the No. 7 seed with a season-best 20.95 coming into the meet, Dixon was No. 12 with a 21.02 and Corcoran was No. 17 with a 21.09, so all raced well above their seeding.

Also Thursday, sophomore Samuel Agbessi from Sterling advanced in the 400-meter hurdles with a 52.62. The final is 4:25 p.m. Saturday.

Rowan’s national title hopes were dealt a blow when their four long jumpers failed to score.

Ocean City’s Elaina Styer, a Stockton sophomore, is off to a flying start in the heptathlon at the NCAA Division 3 Championships in La Crosse, Wisc.

Styer leads the heptathlon after two events at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

In the opening hurdles, Styer ran 14.40 for 923 points. That’s not far off her PR and school-record 14.22.

In the high jump at Veterans Memorial Stadium, Styer earned 759 points after clearing 5-3 ¾. She opened by clearing 4-9 ¾ on her 1st attempt, then passed 4-11 and cleared 5-0 ¼ on her 1st attempt, 5-1 ¼ and 5-2 ½ on her 2nd attempt and 5-3 ¾ on her 1st. She was one of only three women to clear 5-3 ¾.

The heptathlon continues with the shot put and 200 later Thursday and then the long jump, javelin and 800 on Friday.

Styer, 2nd in the pentathlon at indoor NCAAs in Birmingham, Ala., PR’d with 5,050 points in her most recent heptathlon last month in Ewing.

Pleasantville’s Irvin Marable III won the 400-meter hurdles and broke the Wilmington (Del.) school record in the 800-meter run at the CACC Championships in Lakewood.

Marable, a Wilmington sophomore, ran 1:55.94 at the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference meet, breaking his season-best of 1:58.16 from an indoor meet in January at the Ott Center. He ran 1:59.06 in his only previous outdoor 800, in Baltimore last month. An article on the school’s web site doesn’t say what the previous school record was.

Marable placed 2nd in the behind Bridgeport sophomore Edoardo Vandelli, who ran 1:52.65.

It looks like Marable ran for Lincoln University in Lower Oxford Township, hester County, and Coffeyville (Kans.) JUCO landing at Wilmington. He ran his PR 1:54.66 in a meet in Mount Olive, N.C., in his final race for Lincoln in May 2023.

Marable won the 400-meter hurdles in 54.94 and then set a PR of 54.40 at a last-chance meet in West Chester.

Marable also anchored Wilmington’s 3rd-place 4-by-4 team, which ran 3:18.41.

Wilmington sophomore Julian Rich from Camden County Tech won the steeplechase in a personal-best 10:15.17.

Delsea graduate Elisia Lancaster moved into the No. 15 spot on the 2026 U.S. hammer throw list with a 225-1 in a meet in Glassboro. Lancaster’s previous PR was a 222-7 from a meet in Princeton in May of 2025.

Lancaster ranks 65th in the world and No. 56 on the all-time U.S. list. She’s hit the B standard for the USATF Championships in New York July 23-26. The auto standard is 232-0.

Lancaster began her college career at Rowan College at Gloucester County, where she was a multiple JUCO national champion in the shot, discus and hammer and then she spent a year at Towson before finishing at Southern Illinois, where she earned All-America honors indoors in the weight throw and was a Missouri Valley Conference champ in the hammer.

She threw 220-4 at Southern Illinois in May of 2022, improving to 222-7 as a post-grad in 2004 and now 225-1.

Princeton freshman Anthony Liakhnovich from Hammonton recorded a couple big PRs at the Ivy League Championships this past weekend.

Liakhnovich placed 5th in the discus with a 177-3 and 6th in the shot put with a 58-5 ¾. His previous PRs were both made at Penn – 171-8 from last month at the Penn Relays and 58-5 ¼ from an indoor meet at the Ott Center. He was the top freshman in the shot and No. 2 freshman in the disc.

Liakhnovich is just 19 inches off the all-time Princeton top-10 in the discus and 5 ¼ inches off in the shot put.

He’s No. 7 on the all-time South Jersey alumni list in the discus and No.8 in the shot put.

Liakhnovich also plays football at Old Nassau and is listed on the roster as a 6-foot-6, 265-pound offensive lineman.

Millville’s Leah Howard PR’d in the javelin at a recent meet in Waco, Texas, throwing 165-1, which ranks 43rd among U.S. women this year and 26th in the NCAA West Region.

That guarantees her a spot in the NCAA West Region Prelims May 27-30 in Fayetteville, Ark.

Howard’s previous PR was a 164-4, also in Waco, in May of 2024. Her 165-1 ranks 8th all-time on the South Jersey Alumni Performance List and is No. 3 in Texas Tech history.

Howard also placed 5th in the Big 12 Championships in Tucson this past weekend with a 157-5 on her 1st throw.

Delaware junior Kadence Dumas ran the 2nd-fastest 800 in University of Delaware history with a 3rd-place finish at the Conference USA Championships in Murfreesboro, Tenn.

Dumas, from Eastern, lowered her PR more than a second – from 2:07.30 to 2:06.29 – in the finals of the 800 after a 2:09.77 in the qualifying round.

Her time is No. 11 on the all-time South Jersey list and No. 2 on the all-time Delaware performance list, behind a 2:04.82 by Holly Manning in the 2021 NCAA Division 1 East Prelims in Jacksonville.

Dumas finished behind only Liberty’s Allie Zealand, who won the race in 2:05.26, and Privilllege Chikara of Middle Tennessee, who was 2nd in 2:05.53.

Dumas is also No. 5 in Delaware history indoors at 500 meters [1:14.92], 2nd in the 600 [1:33.15], 3rd indoors in the 800 [2:11.03], 7th in the 1,000 [2:55.83] and 7th outdoors in the 400 [55.37].

The 3rd-place finish is Dumas’s highest ever in a conference meet. She was 4th in the 800 at the indoor conference meet in Lynchburg.

Rowan sophomore Nyla Jones from Timber Creek, a top-10 seed in both hurdles races, leads the South Jersey contingent heading to the NCAA Division 3 Championships this weekend in Wisconsin.

Jones is the No. 8 seed in the 400-meter hurdles with her 1:00.26 and No. 9 seed in the 100-meter hurdles with a 13.92, both at a meet in Greensboro, N.C., last month. Both are Rowan school records.

Delsea graduate Ava Reardon, a Rowan junior, made the field in the javelin with a PR 138-11 last month in Charlottesville, Va. Rowan junior Gabrella Pagano from Pope John XXIII in Sparta qualified with her 16:34.81 in the 5,000-meter run.

Stockton sophomore Elaina Styer from Ocean City is seeded 4th in the heptathlon with her 5,050 last month in Ewing. She placed 2nd in the pentathlon at the indoor NCAA D-3 Championships in Birmingham in March. She qualified in the 100-meter hurdles with her 14.22 in the heptathlon at the NJAC Championships, No. 15 in Division 3, but will focus only on the heptathlon in La Crosse, Wisc.

Absegami’s Josephine Buxton, a Stockton freshman, is also a No. 4 seed after throwing the javelin 145-2 at the conference meet in Mahwah.

Stockton senior Kayla Kass will race the 800 after qualifyign with a 2:10.43 in a last-chance meet in Cambridge, Mass., last week. Kass is a three-time NCAA All-America in the 800 and has a PR of 2:07.13 from a meet in Chester, Pa., last April.

Also racing for Stockton is New Milford graduate Emma Petrola, who qualified with a 1:00.89 in the intermediates.

Clayton graduate Kelsey Thomas, a junior at TCNJ, is slated to anchor the Lions’ 13th-seeded 400-meter relay team, which has a 46.83 from the NJAC meet in Mahwah earlier this month. Thomas ran 24.83 and 57.31 this year.

Big weekend for senior Aidan Taulane, who became Woodstown’s third double sectional winner with a sweep of the weight throws.

Taulane won the discus at the South Jersey Group 1 Sectionals at Lenape with a 159-2 on his 2nd attempt and he PR’d in the shot, winning with a 53-5 on his 5th attempt. He’s the No. 1 seed in both throws at the state Group 1 meet in Somerset May 29-30.

Taulane became Woodstown’s first double winner at sectionals since 2014, when Ta’riq Thomas won the long jump at 22-4 ¼ and the triple jump at 43-3 ¼ in the South Jersey Group 2 meet at Buena.

Woodstown’s other double winner at sectionals was Brendan McDonough, who won the 800 in 1:58.0 and the 1,600 in 4:23.2 in the 2005 Group 2 meet at Egg Harbor.

Taulane’s discus PR is a 164-7 from the Woodbury Relays. He’s No. 10 in New Jersey in the discus and No. 15 in the shot put.

Looks like Taulane is 5th on the all-time Salem County list in the discus and 6th in the shot put and Woodstown’s school record holder in both.

He’s Woodstown’s first sectional shot put champion since Jaquan Solomon won Group 1 with a 47-9 ¼ in 2016 and appears to be the Wolverine’s first sectional discus winner ever.