From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

Francis Terry, Hunter Barbieri, Amara Conte and Vincent Delle teamed up to run the second-fastest 1,600-meter relay time in NCAA Division 3 on Saturday.

Terry is a graduate of Sterling, Barber from Egg Harbor Township, Conte from Ferris High in Jersey City and Delle from Old Bridge. 

Terry, Barber, Conte and Delle ran an unpressed 3:15.86 at the Bill Butler Invitational at West Chester University’s Farrell Stadium. The Profs won by 40 meters over The College of New Jersey, which ran 3:21.12.

The only faster Division 3 time this year was turned in on Friday by McMurry University of Abilene, Texas, which ran 3:15.13 at the UIW Invitational at Incarnate Word University in San Antonio.

The 1985 Rowan team – then Glassboro State College – set the school record of 3:10.1 hand-timed, with Deptford’s Tommy Adams and Overbrook’s Ron Moore on the team. That quartet went on to win the NCAA Division 3 title at 3:11.57

Monmouth freshman Keven Kevelier won the triple jump in a dual meet against Rider Saturday with the No. 7 mark in Monmouth history.

Kevelier, a Collingswood graduate, jumped 47-2 3/4 (with no wind information available) to win the event by about five inches over Rider soph Justin Gladden, who jumped 46-9 1/4.

Kevelier’s previous collegiate PR was 46-8 1/2 in March in a dual meet against Army at West Point, N.Y. 

At Collingswood, Kevelier set his lifetime best of 47-5 1/4 in winning the 2019 Meet of Champions at Northern Burlington. 

Kevelier’s jump is No 2 in the Metro Atlantic Conference this year, behind teammate and indoor MAAC champion Mohamad Didgourga, a former Burlington County Scholastic League champion for Trenton Catholic, who jumped 48-11 3/4 at Lafayette last month.

Buena’s Kristin Siegle obliterated her 800 PR Saturday and shattered Rider’s school record in a dual meet against Monmouth in Lawrenceville.

Siegle won the race in 2:10.83, edging Monmouth freshman Katie Locker, who ran 2:11.48.

She broke Rider’s outdoor school record of 2:11.24, set by Stephanie Welte at the 2016 Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton.

The 2:10.83 is a ridiculous seven-second outdoor PR for Siegle, who hadn’t raced an outdoor 800 since the 2019 Metro Atlantic Conference Championships in Long Branch, where she ran 2:17.90.

Her indoor PR is 2:13.90 from a meet in Albana in February of 2020, before last year’s indoor season ended prematurely.

Siegle went from not even being on Rider’s all-time outdoor 800 top-10 to being on top of the list.

At Buena, Siegle had an 800 PR of 2:20.03 at 2015 Group 3 states at South Plainfield, so she’s shaved nearly 10 seconds off her high school best.

Siegle and Locker moved into the top two spots on the 2021 Metro Atlantic Conference performance list.

Delsea graduate Nico Morales, a freshman at Rutgers, cleared a personal-best 15-7 1/4 at the Rutgers B1G Tri-Meet Saturday in Piscataway.

Morales’ previous PR was 15-7. Since he already had the meet won, he had the bar moved up to a PR height, which he cleared. The meet results site doesn’t have series information, so I’m unable to tell you where he entered, where he had misses, what attempt he cleared 15-7 on and whether he attempted another height. Hopefully, that info is eventually updated within the results.

In any case, Morales’ mark is https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/scarletknights.com/documents/2019/9/19/2019_20_Men_s_Track_and_Field_Fact_Book.pdf

Morales first cleared 15-7 at the 2019 Tri-County Conference Championships at Delsea. He also cleared 15-7 this past winter for Rutgers, in a meet at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio. That’s No. 9 in Rutgers indoor history.

Morales’ mark makes him the No. 4 freshman in the Big Ten Conference this year.

Claudine Smith missed the Rutgers outdoor triple jump school record by just three inches Saturday.

Smith, an Atlantic City graduate, jumped 40-11 3/4 at the Rutgers B1G Tri-Meet in Piscataway, an outdoor collegiate best. The timing company did not provide series information or wind information.

Smith’s mark is No. 3 in Rutgers history outdoors, behind only school record holder Kahimah Liverman, who jumped 41-3, and Nwamaka Okobi, who jumped 41-0 1/4.

Her mark is No. 6 this year in the Big Ten Conference.

Her overall collegiate best is a 41-7 1/4 in a meet at Vanderbilt University in Nashville in January of 2000. That’s the best jump in Rutgers history either indoors or outdoors.

Smith’s lifetime best is a 42-2 at the 2019 Meet of Champions at Northern Burlington.

Also in the triple jump, Rancocas Valley graduate Kristina Tossas, a Rutgers freshman, jumped 36-5 for fifth place. She jumped 38-1 1/4 indoors in a meet at Penn State in January. Her high school best was a 37-2 1/2 at 2000 Easterns at the Armory.

Smith also ran 14.24 in the 100-meter hurdles, which is also a collegiate best in only her second outdoor hurdles race. No wind information was provided.

Michigan State’s Shakira Dancy, a graduate of Winslow Township, won the 200 Friday at the Big Ten Invitational Indiana #2 with a collegiate PR.

Dancy ran 24.26 into a 0.2-meters-per-second wind, out-racing second-place Hannah Waller of Michigan, who ran 24.45.

Dancy ran 24.23 last weekend in Iowa City, but that was assisted by a 3.4-MPS wind, and anything over 2.0 is considered wind-aided and not eligible for records and performance lists.

Dancy’s previous college wind-legal PR was a 24.79 indoors at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, in February. That’s an oversized track, so it’s not eligible for indoor records but is considered a legal overall mark.

At Winslow, Dancy ran 23.85 at the 2017 sectionals (with no wind gauge). She was the 2016 Meet of Champions winner in the 200 and a M-of-C runner-up in high school both in the 100 and 400.

Dancy also equalled her collegiate 100 PR Friday with a 12.00. She ran 57.33 last month.

Dancy is a transfer from Florida, where she competed through the middle of the 2020 indoor season. 

Blair Daniel, a Delaware State freshman from Paul VI, recorded a big 400-meter dash PR this week.

Daniel ran 57.78 to place second to freshman teammate Kyra Lyles at the Sting Invitational on Delaware State’s home track in Dover. Delaware State freshmen actually swept the top three spots in the race, with Lyles winning in 56.67 Khaliyah White third in 57.89. All three PR’d.

For Daniel, her previous PR was a 58.38 at the 2019 Camden County Championships at Haddon Township.

Daniel’s previous collegiate best was a 59.56 last month in a meet at High Point, N.C.

Daniel didn’t run on the Lady Hornets’ 4-by-4 in that meet, but she did run a leg on the 400-meter relay team and she did run a 400 leg on Delaware State’s 3:56.74 relay at the Towson Invitational earlier this month.

Delaware State does not have an all-time top-10 on its women’s track and field web site.

Daniel ranks No. 9 in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference in the 400 and is the No. 2 freshman, behind Lyles.

Paulsboro graduate Edgar Rosa opened the outdoor season with a personal best in the javelin.

Rosa, a junior at Rowan, threw 191-11 at the Stockton Invitational in Galloway Township, breaking his previous PR of 185-5, which he set at a meet at The College of New Jersey in April of 2019 while competing for Rowan College Gloucester County.

Rosa won the NJCAA Division 3 national title that spring in Utica, N.Y., with a throw of 182-2.

At Paulsboro, Rosa had a best throw of 161-1, when he placed 5th at 2017 Group 1 states at Egg Harbor. So he’s improved more than 30 feet since he graduated.

Rosa now ranks 4th in NCAA Division 3 in the javelin. No. 1 is teammate another Rowan junior, Dan McAleavey from Howell High School. He  threw 204-7 at the Stockton Invitational. It was his first time over 200 feet. He had a previous PR of 197-7 from the 2019 NCAA Division 3 Championships at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, where he earned All-America honors with an 8th-place finish.

Jessica Woodard returned to competition in style Saturday with a 60-foot shot put bomb in her first track meet in 15 months. 

Woodard, a graduate of Cherokee, won a meet Saturday at the Chula Vista (Calif.) Elite Athlete Training Center, her first competition since an indoor met in Iowa City in January of 2020 and her first outdoor meet since a meet in Norman, Okla., in April of 2019.

That’s an Olympic qualifier for Woodard, which means if she finishes in the top three in the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene in June, she’ll represent the United States in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics (if they’re held). The qualifying standard is 58-0 1/4.

The throw was her best since a 60-4 at the Göteborg Grand Prix in Sweden in August of 2019 and 4th-best of her career. She threw just over a foot shy of her lifetime best of 61-3 1/2, which she set when she placed second at the 2018 NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore.

Good luck finding results of the entire meet on the catastrophically awful USATF web site. I did track down partial results on some track results site here.

Her throw ranks No. 2 among U.S. women so far this year behind only Jessica Ramsey, who threw 61-1 1/2 in a meet in Oxford, Miss., last month. Woodard now ranks No. 6 in the world.

Woodard ranks No. 24 in U.S. history with her 61-3 1/2 in Eugene in 2018.

Hammonton grad Rob Gardner, a freshman at Rowan, hit a couple big PRs pole vaulting this weekend at the Oscar Moore Invitational in Glassboro.

Gardner not only cleared 14 feet to tie his PR from high school, he also cleared 14-6 for the first time. And he posted the best vault by a Rowan pole vaulter outdoors in 15 years.

Gardner won the pole vault with a 14-6 clearance on his ninth jump of the day. He didn’t make opening height of 12-6 until his third attempt and after clearing 12-11 3/4 on his first try he didn’t make it over 13-6 1/4 until his third attempt as well. 

He was one of three jumper over the bar at 13-6 1/4 and since the other two – freshman teammate Eric Byrne of Randolph High and Nicolas Re of Bernards High and Stevens Institute – cleared on their first attempt, Gardner was in third place as the bar went up to 14 feet.

So he needed to match his PR to win, and he did, clearing 14-0 on his first attempt. When Byrne and Re failed to get over the bar on their three tries, Gardner had the win.

He then had the bar raised to 14-6 and cleared that on his first attempt as well.

According to the official meet results, Gardner elected to stop jumping after the 14-6 clearance, which is understandable after nine jumps.

Gardner’s previous collegiate PR was a 13-11 1/4 indoors at Ocean Breeze in February of 2020. He cleared 14-0 once at Hammonton, at the state Group 3 meet at Central Regional in Bayville in May of 2019.

Gardner had only competed in one other meet since the premature end of the 2020 indoor season, and that was a meet at Stockton last month, where he went 13-5 1/4.

That meet was won by junior Keith Holland of Stockton, a graduate of Central Regional, who went 15-3. Holland jumped 15-5 this past weekend at Stockton, the No. 9 mark in NCAA Division 3.

Gardner is now No. 2 in the NJAC behind Holland and No. 32 in NCAA Division 3 and No. 8 among freshmen.

Gardner’s 14-6 is the best clearance by a Rowan vaulter since Adam Diekewicz went 14-7 indoors at the Gotham Cup at the Armory in January of 2012. It’s the best outdoor jump since Ryan West (from Toms River North) cleared 15-9 at the 2006 NJAC Championships at Rowan.