From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

Junior Tyler Davidson of Willingboro and freshman Mar-Quel Davis of Deptford were both double winners for Bloomfield Sunday at the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference Championships in Lakewood.

Davidson won the 400 in 49.32 and the intermediate hurdles in 56.27, and Davis won the 100 in 10.69 and the 200 in 21.72.

Davis’s 10.69, which was wind-legal at 1.5 meters per second, is a college-best. He’s gone as fast as 21.58 in the 200 this year.

Davidson also led off Bloomfield’s winning 1,600-meter relay team, which also included sophomore Samuel Keleekai of Rancocas Valley and junior Eddy Ongwenyi of Burlington Township.

Davis, who didn’t compete last year, also anchored the winning 400-meter relay team, which also included junior Mikal Wright of Bridgeton.

Davidson has college bests of 49.26 from an indoor meet at Ocean Breeze and 52.78 from the 2017 Penn Relays. His 400 PR is 48.03 from the BCSL meet at Northern Burlington, where he was second to Brandon Outlaw, who’s now at Virginia.

Davidson’s 100 PR is 10.65 from 2017 Group 3 sectionals at Delsea.

I’d love to tell you whether either Davidson or Davis has or is close to any school records, but Bloomfield’s web site doesn’t list school records or any other history of the program. It also lists the Penn Relays as an upcoming meet.

Also from the CACC meet (and remember this meet was held Sunday in a heavy rain):

–> Keleekai placed fourth in the 200 in 22.45

–> Sophomore Ja’haud Lowber of Bloomfield, a sophomore from Deptford, placed third in the triple jump at 45-3.

–> Bloomfield freshman Jeanquai Morton from Riverside was fourth in the 110-meter high hurdles (15.22) and sixth in the high jump at 6-1 1/2.

–> Freshman Michael Ramos of Riverside and Ongwenyi placed second and third in the intermediates in 57.36 and 57.38, giving South Jersey a sweep of the top three spots in the race.

–> Nicholas Rivera, a Bloomfield freshman from Camden, ran 4:05.37 for second in the 1,500.

–> Delsea graduate William Goldsborough, a Georgian Court freshman from Delsea, took second in the shot with a 48-11 1/2,  third in the discus with a 146-8 and fifth in the hammer at 135-9.

–> Georgia Court junior Devin Martin, a St. Joe’s Prep grad from Williamstown, ran 15.04 for second in the 110 highs and had a 45-2 1/2 for fourth in the triple jump.

–> Omari Kennedy, a Georgian Court junior from Cherry Hill East, took third in the long jump at 22-0 1/4.

–> Alejandro Valdez, a Georgia Court freshman from Bridgeton, placed third in the shot with a throw of 47-9 and added sixths in the discus and hammer.

–> Charles Wolef-Fields, a Wildwood Catholic graduate and Georgian Court freshman, ran 11.15 for fourth in the 100 and anchored the third-place 4-by-1 team.

–> In the women’s meet, Bloomfield freshman Siani Smith of Burlington City placed fifth in both the high hurdles and and high jump.

–> Georgian Court, coached by Holy Cross graduate Mike Murawski, won both the men’s and women’s team titles. The men have won four of the last five CACC titles. The women have won six in a row.

Jailya Ash recorded PRs in both the 100-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles at the Rowan Invitational this weekend, recording the fastest time in the state this year in the 100 and the No. 4 time in the hurdles.

WOW!!!

Ash, a sophomore at Eastern, was ready to make a 100 breakthrough based on her 7.06 indoors, which won her the Meet of Champions title at 55 meters.

She went into Glassboro with a 100 PR of 12.30 from last year’s Meet of Champions, but she ran close to that with a 12.31 at Lenape last weekend.

The PR came tumbling down in the 100 trials Friday at Rowan when she led all qualifiers into the finals with a 12.28. Then she outran the field in the final with a huge PR of 12.00, fastest at Rowan in nine years — since another Eastern sprinter, English Gardner, won the 2010 race in 11.87. Gardner of course went on to become an Olympic gold medalist and one of the greatest sprinters ever.

Ash’s time is third-fastest in meet history, behind Gardner and Shavon Greaves, who set the meet record of 11.68 for Lakewood in 2006. Greaves became a nine-time All-America at Penn State and now coaches at Wagner.

Egg Harbor sophomore Lauren Princz, the Meet of Champions 200 champ last spring, was second to Ash in 12.14. Ash, Wilson’s Dennisha Page (12.02) and Princz rank No. 1, 2 and 3 in New Jersey, according to the MileSplit data base.

Ash didn’t seriously race the 100 highs as a freshman, but she showed she can hurdle indoors, when she took second at Group 4 states and made the finals at the Meet of Champions.

But her outdoor PR was 14.78 going into the Rowan Invite. That went down to 14.40 in the trials and 14.36 in the final, where she finished behind only Winslow’s Tionna Tobias and Atlantic City’s Claudine Smith, who both ran 14.24.

The 2019 state list shows Smith at the top at 14.04, with Tobias third at 14.24 and Ash fourth.

Ash’s older sister Jewel, an Eastern junior, ranks second in New Jersey in the 200 at 24.70 and fifth in the intermediates 1:03.17 but didn’t compete at Rowan.

ALL-TIME S.J. 100-METER DASH LIST
11.42 … Michele Glover (Willingboro), 1981
11.49 … English Gardner (Eastern), 2008
11.57 … Patti Dunlap (Camden), 1979
11.58 … Bria Mack (Williamstown), 2017
11.61 … Amandi Rhett (Moorestown), 2000
11.71 … Shakira Dancy (Winslow Twp.), 2017
11.73 … Torie Robinson (Winslow Twp.), 2014
11.77 … Aisha Morgan (Schalick), 1998
11.78 … Shameka Speed (Bridgeton), 2003
11.81 … Denise Liles (Kingsway), 1984
11.81 … Lauren Princz (Egg Harbor Twp.), 2018
11.81 … Audrey (Wilson (Deptford), 2008
11.82 … Amandi Rhett (Moorestown), 1999
11.82 … Annie Johnson (Shawnee), 2012
11.84 … Robin Taylor (Deptford), 1980
11.85 … Dana Burnett (Willamstown), 1996
11.88 … Denis Mitchell (Edgewood), 1983
11.89 … Cecelia Gerstenbacher (Delsea), 2017
11.90 … Dennisha Page (Woodrow Wilson), 2018
11.91 … Aliya Harrison (Sterling), 2017
11.94 … Emily Carson (Haddonfield), 2013
11.95 … Aliyah Taylor (Rancocas Valley), 2017
11.96 … Jamillah Nock (Woodrow Wilson), 2004
11.98 … Kiara Lester (Deptford), 2014
11.98 … Ciera Ismail (Schalick), 2013
11.98 … Aliya Harrison (Sterling), 2018
12.00 … Jailya Ash (Eastern), 2019
12.00 … Andrea Conway (Bordentown), 1986
12.00 … Aisha Morgan (Schalick), 1998

The Rowan women got a bunch of massive performances this weekend in winning their six NJAC title in the last eight years.

Five women in particular came up huge for the Profs:

Hannah Vendetta, Myiah Sturdivant, Darielle Cross, Michelle Macauley and Aaniyah Robinson.

Those five combined to score 99 points — more than a third of Rowan’s total — as the Profs outscored The College of New Jersey 280-254 to win the 2019 team title at Stockton University’s Larry James Stadium in Galloway Township.

A 26-point win is very close in a meet with 19 events.

Here’s how they did it:

HANNAH VENDETTA, SENIOR, PITMAN [22 points]
Vendetta won the 1,500 in 4:47.01, took second in the 800 in 2:19.32 and ran fifth in the 5,000 in 18:34.41.

MYIAH STURDIVANT, SOPH, TIMBER CREEK [20 points]
Sturdivant won the 200 in 25.81 and the 400 in 57.39 and anchored winning 400-meter relay team (48.00) and ran on the second-place 1,600-meter relay team (4:07.58).

MICHELLE MACAULEY, SENIOR, FRANKLIN TWP. (20 points):
It’s pretty crazy that Macauley not only competed in the grueling seven-event, two-day heptathlon and placed second with 3,286 points, she also won the long jump at 18-1 3/4, placed in the high jump and even contested the triple jump! What a weekend!

DARIELLE CROSS, JUNIOR, MATAWAN [19 points]
Cross broke the school record and meet record in the hurdles trials with a 14.03, then took second in the final (14.52), third in the 100 (12.67) and fourth in the 200 (26.43) and also ran on the winning 4-by-1.

AANIYAH ROBINSON, SOPH, PASSAIC COUNTY TECH [18 points]
Robinson won the 100 in 12.30, placed second in the 200 in 25.88 and ran on the 4-by-100.

But that quintet got plenty of help.

Here are some of Rowan’s other standouts from this past weekend. And remember, times from Sunday don’t mean much since conditions were so bad.

Aspen McMillan, Senior South Brunswick (14 points): Won the 100 highs in 14.35, placed fifth in the 100 in 12.83 and ran on the 400-meter relay team.

Ashley Edwards, Freshman, Sayreville (14 points): Took fourth in the triple jump (34-8 1/2), second in the long jump (17-11 1/4) and eighth in the 100 hurdles (15.97).

Alyssa Sanders, Sophomore, Pitman (12 points): Ran second to teammate and high school teammate Vendetta in the 1,500 (4:50.02) and was seventh in the 800 (2:27.02) and 5,000 (18:49.38). How about that range!

Kari DiTonno, Junior, Livingston (11 points): Placed third in the high jump and fourth in the pole vault.

Dani Nicklas, Junior, Audubon (10 points): Won the intermediates in 1:05.09 and ran on the second-place 4-by-400.

Claire Incantalupo, Senior, Sparta (10 points): Ran fourth in both middle-distance races with 59.26 and 2:23.84 and ran a leg on the 4-by-400.

There are too many to mention here, but Chelsea Smith (freshman, Paulsboro) was fifth in the discus and hammer, Diane Ferraro (soph., South Plainfield) was fourth in the 1,500 and fifth in the 800, Makayla Taylor (freshman, Randolph) was fourth in the discus and fifth in the shot and Kierston Johnson (freshman, Oakcrest) was third in the 200 and eighth in the long jump

A *.pdf of full results, click here: http://www.leonetiming.com/2019/Outdoor/NJAC/Results.pdf

For event-by-event results, click here: https://results.leonetiming.com/?mid=1662

Deptford graduate Tyler Garland easily won his first conference title for Rowan University Sunday, running 14.37 to win the 110-meter high hurdles at the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships at Stockton University in Galloway Township.

Garland finished more than half a second ahead of second-place Daniel Pfueger of The College of New Jersey, who was second in 14.99.

https://results.leonetiming.com/?mid=1662

Garland, a sophomore, is ranked fourth nationally in NCAA Division 3 in the 110 highs with his 14.30 from a meet back in March in Orlando, Fla., in much better conditions.

https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2572/2019_NCAA_Div._III_Outdoor_Qualifying/2019/o?gender=m

Garland will race in the 400-meter intermediates later Sunday. He’s ranked No. 25 nationally. Senior teammate Chris Mesiano from Schalick is the No. 1 seed and ranked fourth nationally at 52.96 behind three runners from different Ohio colleges.

Garland is a transfer from Rowan College Gloucester County, where he was a JUCO All-America in the 110 highs.

Senior Hannah Vendetta and sophomore Alyssa Sanders, Rowan teammates and former Pitman High School teammates, finished 1-2 in the 1,500 Sunday in the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships at Stockton University in Galloway Township.

Vendetta won the race in 4:47.01, Sanders was second in 4:50.02 and Moorestown graduate Natalie Cooper, a senior at The College of New Jersey, was third in 4:51.10, giving South Jersey a sweep of the top three places.

The conference title is Vendetta’s fourth. She also won the mile indoors the last two years and the 1,500 last spring.

The second-place finish is Sanders’ best ever in a conference meet. He was third in the 1,500 last spring.

Vendetta and Sanders ran at Pitman for legendary Matt Elmuccio, who won three Meet of Champions titles at 800 and 1,600 meters for Westfield in the late 1990s and anchored Westfield to the 1995 Penn Relays DMR title as a sophomore with a 4:11 anchor split.

Is she a hurdler who also long jumps or a long jumper who also hurdles? Tionna Tobias is making that question very difficult to answer.

Tobias over the last couple weekends has dominated both events, winning the long jump at Woodbury with a season-best 18-9 1/2 and then winning at Rowan with an 18-7 1/4. She ran 14.29 in the hurdles trials at the South Jersey Open Friday night, then ran a season-best 14.24 to win the finals

Tobias is No. 3 in the state in the hurdles, behind Atlantic City’s Claudine Smith, who ran 14.04 at the Carifta Trials in Jamaica last month, and Ramapo’s Grace O’Shea of Ramapo, who was third in the Meet of Champions last spring.

She’s No. 2 in the long jump in New Jersey, behind only Williamstown’s Karissa Watson, who popped a 18-10 1/2 at the Rowland Relays last weekend.

Tobias and Smith hooked up in a titanic battle in the hurdles finals at Rowan, with both being clocked in 14.24.

The photo cameras actually had Tobias winning by 6-1000ths of a second — 14.232 to 14.238 for Smith. Eastern soph Jailya Ash wasn’t far behind in a personal-best 14.36.

Tobias, Smith and Ash ran the three-fastest hurdles times at the Rowan Invite since 2012, when Ste’yce McNeil set the meet record of 13.79. Interesting that Tobias was Winslow’s eighth Rowan Invite hurdles winner in the last 15 years, following Krystal Cantey in 2005 and 2006, McNeil from 2010 through 2012, Gabrielle Bennett in 2015 and Brittany Preston in 2016. You can add Edgewood’s Pam Richardson in 2000 as well, since Edgewood became Winslow.

In the long jump, Tobias came up just short of her own meet record of 18-9 1/4 from last year but she did become the first girl in meet history to win the long jump two years in a row. Her 18-7 1/4 was two inches better than Millville freshman Bryanna Craig, who set a huge PR of 18-5 1/4.

Next for Tobias and the Winslow girls powerhouse is the Camden County Championships Saturday at Haddon Township.

Rancocas Valley graduate Danielle Steff of Monmouth bombed a 161-1 to win the javelin Saturday at the MAAC Championships at her home track in West Long Branch.

The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title is the second in a row for Steff, who threw 160-7 to win last year’s title.

She’s the first Monmouth woman ever to win back-to-back conference javelin titles going back to Monmouth’s days in the NEC.

Steff PR’d last month with a 163-1 in a meet at Moravian College in Bethlehem. That’s only a foot off the school record of 164-4, set in 2014 by Kelsey Reese. No. 2 and 3 in Monmouth history — Steff and Cinnaminson graduate Faith Blamon (162-7 in 2017) — are from South Jersey and more specifically from the Burlington County Scholastic League.

Steff wasn’t far off the meet record of 164-3, set in 2014 by Reese.

Steff opened with a 150-0 that would have been good enough to win. She threw 143-4 and then fouled to finish the trials, then opened the finals with throws of 141-0 and 136-0 before hitting the 161-1 on the final throw of the competition.

Monmouth swept the top three spots with Stephanie Roones second and Kristin Krier third. In all, Monmouth went 1-2-3-5-7-8 in the event.

Good luck finding team scores anywhere — they don’t seem to be on the results web site — but the Monmouth women seem to have a huge lead going into Sunday’s final events.

Matter of fact, the MAAC web site is a disaster. As of noon Sunday they still hadn’t updated Saturday’s team scores. There is no order of events to be found. There is a meet program, but it’s from 2018 and doesn’t include an order of events.

Rowan freshman Rakim Coyle was already in the lead. But he had something special saved for his final jump of the long jump competition Saturday at the New Jersey Athletic Conference championships at Stockton University in Galloway Township.

Coyle, a freshman from Wildwood Catholic, had jumps of 22-6 1/4, 22-7 1/4 and 22-6 1/2 in the trials  and went into the finals leading sophomore teammate John Owens of West Windsor-Plainsboro, who had a 22-4 1/2 and a 22-1.

Another Rowan freshman, Cheo King from Woodbury, sat in third with a 22-1 1/2. King has a PR of 22-9 1/2 from his win at the Group 1 sectionals at Egg Harbor two years ago.

Coyle fouled on his first two jumps of the finals, but Rowan still sat 1-2-3. Then, on the final jump of the day, Coyle sailed 23-6, the best jump of his life.

Coyle had a 23-1 3/4 last spring in the Meet of Champions, but his best jump as a collegian before Saturday was 22-3 1/2 at a meet at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., last month.

Then he popped the four best jumps of his college career and the four best jumps of the competition Saturday. He’s the first freshman to win the NJAC long jump competition in 11 years.

Top-seeded George Alexandris of Montclair State, the NCAA Division 3 championships record holder (and a one-time Rowan athlete), scratched.

Coyle’s 23-6 ranks No. 17 in NCAA Division 3 so far this year and second-best among freshmen, behind only Kevon Bouaud of SUNY-Cobleskill, who has a 23-10 to his credit. Alexandris is No. 1 in the country at 24-9 3/4.

Coyle’s 23-6 is the best jump by a Rowan freshman since 2008, when Kyle Hayes from Point Pleasant Boro High went 24-0 3/4 with a legal 0.8 wind at the New Balance Qualifying Challenge at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island in Manhattan.

In all, Rowan went 1-2-3-5-6 in the long jump for 31 team points, with sophomore Frankie Richard of Northern Highlands fifth at 21-11 1/2 and sophomore Zaire Weaver of Passaic County Tech sixth at 21-9 1/2.

Going into Sunday’s second day of activity, Rowan leads Stockton 76-51. The Profs from Glassboro in Gloucester County are seeking their fifth straight team title after The College of New Jersey had won 17 straight.

Princeton senior Carly Bonnet ran the fastest intermediate hurdles time by.a Princeton woman in 36 years Saturday.

Bonnet, a Haddonfield graduate, ran a big personal-best of 59.12 in the qualifying rounds of the Heps, the Ivy League Championships, advancing to Sunday’s finals. She’s the second-fastest qualifier, behind only Maya Miklos of Harvard, who ran 58.26.

The final is scheduled for 3 p.m. Sunday at Princeton’s Weaver Track.

https://ivyleague.com/documents/2019/4/8//2019_OTF_Schedule_of_Events.pdf?id=3258

Bonnet’s previous personal-best was 1:00.01 at a meet at Princeton last month. Before that it was 1:00.60 at Ivy’s last year. So she’s lowered her PR by about 1 1/2 seconds in the last few weeks.

Bonnet’s time is second-fastest in Princeton history, behind only Sally Anderson, who ran 58.19 at the 1983 NCAA championships at Robertson Stadium on the University of Houston campus.

Bonnet, racing in lane 2, won the first of two semifinal races. Miklos won the second section.

Bonnet’s high school PR was 1:02.90, which she ran when she won the state Group 2 title at Egg Harbor as a junior in the spring of 2014.

Two weeks ago, Bonnet ran a personal-best 56.63 in the flat 400, a sign that she was ready for a breakthrough in the intermediates.

Rowan junior Darielle Cross ran the No. 1 time this year in NCAA Division 3 in the 100-meter hurdles in the trials of the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships at Stockton University in Galloway.

Cross’s 14.03 time was wind-legal, with a 1.1 meters-per-second breeze at her back. She ran in lane three in the third of three heats, advancing to the final at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Cross broke the Rowan school record of 14.12 set 25 years ago by Rona Henderson when the school was known as Glassboro State.

She also broke the meet record of 14.17 set in 2010 by Priscilla Senyah.

Cross lowered her PR from 14.39, which she ran in the finals at the NCAA Division 3 nationals in La Cross, Wisc., last year, when she placed eighth and earned All-America honors. Her previous season-best time was a 14.50, which she ran last month in a meet at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa.

Cross, senior teammate Aspen McMillan of South Brunswick, who ran 14.56, and freshman Ashley Edwards of Sayreville, who ran 15.03, gave Rowan the three-fastest qualifiers.

Curiously, Senyah, the former meet record holder, is also a graduate of Sayreville High.

Cross also ran a personal-best 12.41 in the 100 and advanced to the final as the fifth-fastest qualifier. Her previous career-best was a 12.43 at last year’s NJAC meet.

McMillan is a four-time conference hurdles champ and NCAA runner-up indoors. She has a PR of 14.28 from the 2016 conference meet at Stockton. Her best time this year is 14.42.

Edwards only ran the 100 highs twice previously as a collegian with a college-best time of 15.82 in a meet in March in San Diego. Her PR was a 15.70 last spring as a senior at Sayreville in a meet at JFK Iselin. Either way, huge breakthrough race for her.

Edwards also placed second in the long jump with a 17-11 1/2 jump on her first attempt.