From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank

All Asia Young did in her first college conference meet is set a five-inch long jump PR, uncork four of the competition’s five best marks and break the school record.

Young, a Rider freshman from Pleasantville and graduate of Holy Spirit, won the long jump at the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference indoor track championships with a personal-best 19-8 3/4 highlighting a terrific series.

Rider placed second to Monmouth in the MAAC meet at the 168th Street Armory in New York.

Young won her second state Parochial B long jump title last spring – she also won as a sophomore and was second to Ludi Zhu of Gill St. Bernard as a junior – and also ran on Holy Spirit’s state-champion 400- and 1,600-meter relay teams. Indoors, with no long jump, she was state 400-meter dash champ.

She had a high school PR of 19-2 3/4 in the long jump but broke that in her first meet as a collegian, jumping 19-3 1/2 in a meet at Monmouth in December. That broke the indoor school record of 18-10 1/2 set in 2013 by Dashana Ransome and the overall mark of 18-11 3/4 set by Ransome in 2014.

At the conference meet, Young put together a monster series, with four jumps of 18-7 or better. She opened with an 18-11 3/4 and an 18-7 3/4, then after a foul jumped 18-10 1/4. After another foul, she popped the 19-8 1/2 jump on her final jump.

Young needed that last jump because Ellinor Persson of Manhattan had passed her with a 19-3 1/2 jump on her final attempt.

It would be nice to know where Young’s mark stands in meet history, but the MAAC, like so many other smaller conferences, doesn’t bother providing any information on its web site on previous meet winners. Or much of anything, really. There is a link for “Indoor Top Times,” but when you click on it, it’s empty.

The Rider web site provides links for media guides, but the most recent one available is from seven years ago, and there’s nowhere on Rider’s site to find previous conference winners in school history, so I also can’t tell you when the last Rider woman to win a MAAC long jump title was.

At the MAAC meet, Young also ran the 400-meter dash leg on Rider’s distance medley team and placed seventh in the triple jump with a 35-7 3/4. Young did not triple jump in high school, and the 35-7 3/4 is  a PR.

Rider’s indoor triple jump school record holder is former Shawnee star Tabatha Haskins with a 38-8 1/4.

Young’s grandfather was the late Reggie Miller, an all-time South Jersey basketball great who scored over 2,500 points for Holy Spirit, is still 11th in South Jersey history in scoring and has been enshrined in the S.J. Basketball Hall of Fame.

Shawnee senior Mark Miller has improved gradually as a miler, from 4:40 as a freshman to 4:32.28 as a sophomore and 4:26.49 as a junior.

The PRs have really been falling of late for Miller, who brought a 4:26.49 PR into his senior year of indoor track.

Miller ran a personal-best 4:23.94 at the Bubble in a SJTCA meet in January, then lowered his PR to 4:23.88 at South Jersey Group 4 sectionals, where he was second to Trenton’s Mulual Mu, then lowered it again to 4:21.54 when he placed fifth at states this past weekend.

That’s three PRs in 24 days for Miller!

Miller is the No. 9 seed for the Meet of Champions and the fastest South Jersey entrant coming out of the various states meets.

He’s also the second-fastest indoor miler in Shawnee history:

4:16.71 … Dave Forward, 2009
4:21.54 … Mark Miller, 2017
4:23.15 … Dave DeJong, 1998
4:25.0h … Keith O’Brien, 1992
4:25.51 … Connor Herr, 2012

The last Burlington County runner under 4:20 indoors was Shawn Wilson of Cherokee with a 4:18.50 in 2012.

Rowan senior John Meyer placed second in the mile at the New Jersey Athletic Conference meet this weekend in Staten Island with a time of 4:17.34.

Impressed?

Yeah, that’s a nice performance!

Now consider this: Meyer never broke 4:40 in high school!

We always hear about high school studs who go to college and never match their high school PRs. Well, here’s the opposite sort of story.

Meyer ran high school track at Indian Hills in Oakland, Bergen County. His high school 1,600 PR was a 4:42.20 that he ran placing ninth at the North Jersey Section 1 Group 2 sectionals at the Bubble in February of 2013. Meyer finished ninth that day, about 100 meters behind Mahway’s James Buser, who ran a 4:25.15 for the win.

Outdoors, Meyer never broke 4:47. He did get his 800 time down to 2:03 and change, good enough for 13th at the 2013 Bergen County championships, five seconds behind Buser.

But according to the NJ Milesplit database, Meyer didn’t even run the mile outdoors as a senior. His last high school 1,600 on record was that 4:42 at indoor sectionals in 2013.

Which takes us to college.

Meyer wound up at Rowan and immediately began improving. He ran as fast as 4:15.23 for 1,500 meters as a freshman — equivalent of a 4:35.57 full mile. Which was about a nine-second PR over his high school 1,600 best and a 14-second PR over his outdoor 1,600 PR.

As a sophomore, he lowered his mile time to 4:30.55 indoors, then had a huge breakthrough that spring, when he ran as fast as 4:02.06 for 1,500 meters — equivalent of a 4:21.35 full mile and now about 23 seconds faster than he ran in high school.

Another breakthrough came last indoor season when he PR’d at 4:18.73 at the ECAC championships and then last spring at the outdoor ECAC meet he rolled a remarkable 3:54.65 for the 1,500 — equivalent of a 4:13.35 full mile.

That’s half a minute faster than his high school PR!!!!!

This past weekend, Meyer ran an indoor mile PR of 4:17.34, finishing second to Ramapo’s Jeremy Hernandez in the NJAC Championships at the Ocean Breeze facility. Hernandez, a Clifton graduate who has a 3:43.56 1,500 to his credit, ran 4:15.98.

And Meyer, who had a 4:42 high school PR, is now ranked No. 34 in the country in NCAA Division 3.

Meyer, who has also run 1:59.61 this indoor season, also teamed up with Brandon Eldershaw, Kevin Veltre and Crispin D’Augusta to give Rowan a win in the 3,200-meter relay with an 8:05.30. The Profs finished 75 meters ahead of Stockton and won went own to win their third straight team title, outscoring The College of New Jersey by 100 points (245-145)!

Meyer isn’t just one of the most improved runners you’ll find, he’s a team captain, a Rowan scholar-athlete and a member of the Chip Alpha Sigma National College Athlete Honor Society.

Now, that’s a fun story!

Sophomore Connor Melko won the 800 and 1,600 and the Bishop Eustace distance team piled up a ridiculous 54 points in three events to lead the Crusaders to their third consecutive state Parochial B indoor championship and fourth overall.

With the 10-8-6-4-2-1 scoring system, there are 31 points available per event, so 93 total points in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200. Eustace scored more than half of them — 54 of 93, or 58 percent of all available distance points in the entire state.

Eustace outscored second-place Hudson Catholic 66-48 to win the Parochial B title. Eustace won Parochial B in 2010, 2015 and 2016.

With four indoor titles, Eustace trails only Willingboro (14), Haddonfield (7) and Woodbury (5) among South Jersey schools. Bridgeton and Winslow also have four.

Eustace also won outdoor state titles in Parochial B in 1992, 1995 and 1996 so now has seven overall championships.

The 1969 Eustace team scored the most points in Parochial B, but that came during a two-year period in which the NJSIAA inexplicably decided not to award state team championships. That 1969 Eustace team is regarded as the unofficial state Parochial B champs.

As for this year’s meet, Eustace scored 24 points in the 1,600, 20 points in the 800 and 10 in the 3,200 for 54 of 66 points in the three long track races.

Some 42 of those points came from Melko, sophomore Andrew Massaro and junior Nick Hutchison.

Melko won the 800 in an indoor PR 2:01.47 and the 1,600 in 4:38.04, Hutchison ran 10:00.62 for second in the 3,200 and 4:42.09 for third in the 1,600, and Massaro ran 4:39.11 for second to Melko in the 1,600.

Junior Philip Sobocinski ran 2:05.11 and sophomore Sean May an indoor PR 2:05.15 for third and fourth in the 800, and senior Michael Dziuba added two points with a fifth-place finish in the 3,200 for a total of 54 points for the Eustace distance team.

The Crusaders also got big points in the field from two seniors – Michael Fisher placed third in the pole vault and Montel Johnson was fourth in the shot put.

May, Massaro and seniors Daniel Hullihan and John Nguyen also teamed up to place fifth in the 1,600-meter relay.

Seneca grad Alex McGrainer, a Rhode Island senior, finished first in a wild five-man finish and won the 1,000-meter run at the Atlantic 10 Championships Sunday with a time of 2:31.15.

The top five finishers all ran between 2:31.15 and 2:31.90 in the strategic race, which means  five meters separated first and fifth in the race at George Mason Fieldhouse in Fairfax, Va.

McGrainer had run 2:29.34 in Saturday’s trials, second-fastest among qualifiers behind Nathan Schultz of GMU, who ran 2:29.17.

In the final, McGrainer finished a step ahead of second-place Nathan Schultz of host George Mason (2:31.55), with Colton Nettleton of St. Louis (2:31.65), Jack Magee of St. Joe’s (2:31.67) and Brian Gendron of U. Mass (2:31.90) all just behind.

McGrainer is the first Rhode Island runner to win the A-10 1,000 since Joe Molz in 2006. This was his fourth time finishing in the top three in an A-10 conference championship race but his first title.

McGrainer’s 1,000 PR is 2:25.20 from the Terrier Classic in Boston last month.

George Mason won the team title 214-155 1/2 over Rhode Island.

McGrainer placed in both the 800 and 1,600 at states his senior year at Seneca, running PRs of 1:55.91 and 4:19.83. He was an Olympic Conference, Burlington County and South Jersey Group 3 champ at 1,600 meters.

At URI, he has PRs of 1:53.26 at 800 meters and 3:55.85 for 1,500 meters, equivalent of about a 4:14.7 full mile.

McGrainer is the second South Jersey native to win the 1,000 at the indoor A-10 meet in three years. You won’t find the results on the lame A-10 web site, which doesn’t have any former meet results available and only has a three-year-old meet program, but Delsea graduate Steve Butenewicz of St. Joe’s won the A-10 1,000 in 2015 with a time of 2:29.19.

 

Haddonfield’s talented sophomore class – with some notable help from senior Spencer Flores – led the Bulldogs to their third straight state indoor championship this weekend.

Haddonfield edged Governor Livingston of Berkeley Heights by one point to win its first indoor state Group 2 title. Haddonfield out-scored GL 35-34.

It was the closest team finish in the indoor Group 2 meet in 15 years, since Bridgeton – led by Robert Edwards and Shakeem Brown – beat Craig Segal and Holmdel 37-36 in the 2002 meet at Jadwin Gym.

The state indoor team title is Haddonfield’s 10th, fifth-most in state history behind Christian Brothers (21), Asbury Park (15), St. Benedict’s (12) and Willingboro (12).

Haddonfield also won Group 1 in 1987, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2016.

Sophomores Luke Colehower and Derek Gess were huge for the Bulldogs, but they got some help.

–> Colehower won the 400 in 49.92, off his state-leading 48.75 but easily fast enough to win and lock up 10 huge points off the bat for the Bulldogs. Colehower came back to anchor Haddonfield’s winning 1,600-meter relay team, teaming up with Spencer Flores, Gess and soph Zachariah Murray to run a season-best 3:25.27.

–> Gess ran 4:24.97 in the 1,600, placing second to Raritan junior Louis DiLaurenzio, who ran 4:23.38. He also contributed a relay leg.

–> In addition to his relay leg, Flores placed third in the high hurdles, giving the Bulldogs six crucial points. Flores qualified second at 7.81 but settled for third in the final, covering the barriers in 7.86.

–> Another soph, Greg Eisenhower, ran an indoor/outdoor PR of 9:50.49 to score a big point. Considering he was the No. 7 seed, that was clutch.

So even with Colehower and Gess each placing in only one individual event, Haddonfield got 10 points in the 400, eight in the 1,600, six in the hurdles, 10 in the relay and one in the 3,200 for 35 total points and a state championship.

Including Haddonfield’s four outdoor state titles (Group 1 in 1987, Group 2 in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2015), that’s now a remarkable 15 state championships for the Bulldogs.

 

It had been 29 years since the Rancocas Valley girls won a state championship, and this one was very similar to the first one.

In 1987, Tonya Lee scored all of RV’s points in the state indoor Group 3 meet at Jadwin Gym, with wins in the 400 (59.88) and high jump (5-6) and a second-place in the 55-meter hurdles.

Under the old scoring system – 6-4-3-2-1 – that amounted to 16 points and was enough for the Vince Phillips-coached Red Devils to win the team title.

Lee went on to multiple All-America honors at Tennessee and reached the finals of the 1992 Olympic Trials in the 400-meter hurdles.

This year, nearly three decades later and on the other side of the state, it was Aliyah Taylor’s turn to lead the Red Devils to a state championship. Taylor had a hand in all but one of RV’s 29 points as the Red Devils won their second state title.

Taylor won the 400 in 56.76, set a PR and broke her own school record with a 7.01 for second to Williamstown’s Bria Mack in the 55 and teamed up with sophomores Darynn Minus-Vincent and Shauna Nuss and senior Sydne Nance to run a New Jersey No. 3 and school-record 3:58.11 to win the 1,600-meter relay.

The 3:58.11 is an indoor and overall school record for Rancocas Valley. The previous overall mark of 3:59.34 was set by Janaia Sledge-Maith, Morgan Gordon Marcia McCord and Allison Hawkey at the 2007 Central Jersey Group 4 sectionals at Hillsborough.

The only point R.V. scored that Taylor did not have a hand in was a sixth place by Nance in the high jump with a 5-2 clearance.

Rancocas Valley finished with a three-point margin of victory over South Brunswick, winning 29-26.

Absegami’s Ford Palmer helped the New Jersey/New York Track Club break the world best in the indoor four-mile relay Friday at the Armory. Palmer split 3:59, and the quarter ran 16:12.81, breaking the mark of 16:16.67 set in 1993 by the New York Athletic Club.

Racing at the Artie O’Connor Invitational, Olympian and former Princeton star Donn Cabral led off with a 4:05.2 and Palmer followed with his 3:59.8 split. North Carolina State alum Graham Crawford, a late replacement for ailing Colby Alexander, split 4:08.6 in his first race of the year, and former Columbia star Kyle Merber anchored in 3:59.3.

The quartet was hoping to run sub-16 before Alexander was forced to drop out, but they still shattered the indoor world best time in an event that admittedly is not run very often. Because the four-mile relay is not an official IAAF event, the time is considered a world-best as opposed to a world record.

Interestingly, Artie O’Connor was the coach at Fordham when the Rams won the four-mile relay at the Penn Relays in 1963.

Palmer, who ran collegiately at Monmouth, has a mile PR of 3:56.79, fastest ever by a South Jersey native.

The NJ/NY Track Club is coached by legendary coach Frank Gagliano, and it’s not the first world record by one of his relay teams. And the last one included a South Jersey runner as well.

At the 1987 Penn Relays, coach Gags’ Georgetown distance medley team ran 9:20.96 at Franklin Field, the fastest time ever run. The 400 runner on that team was Lenape graduate Darron Outler, who split 46.9.

That mark is no longer the world record or even the college record but it remains No. 2 in college history behind Arkansas’ 9:20.10 two years later at Penn.

The NYAC’s record was set  by Brad Horton, Jeff Smith, Brad Schlapak and Princeton star Bill Burke, who anchored in 3:59.4, at the 1993 Dartmouth Relays in Hanover, N.H.

The overall world record in the four-mile relay is 15:49.08, set in 1985 in Dublin by the Irish team of Eamonn Coghlan, current Villanova coach Marcus O’Sullivan, Frank O’Mara and Ray Flynn.

The U.S. best time – with all four runners being U.S. citizens – is 16:08.54, set by an Athletics West team in 1984 in Eugene by Dan Alrdige, Doug Padilla, Tom Smith and Chuck Aragon.

Williamstown senior Bria Mack moved into the No. 4 spot on the all-time South Jersey 55-meter dash list and the No. 10 spot on the all-time state list Friday with her blistering 6.95 to win the state Group 4 title at the Bubble in Toms River.

Mack entered the meet with a PR of 7.08 at sectionals last week and ran a 7.00 in the trials on Saturday followed by her 6.95 in the final. And she needed every bit of that 6.95 to hold off Rancocas Valley junior Aliyah Taylor, who was second in 7.01 – a personal-best of her own and also an all-time South Jersey top-10 performance.

The individual state title was the seventh of Mack’s career at 55 meters indoors or 100 meters or 200 meters outdoors.

Mack’s 6.95 is No. 1 in New Jersey this year and fastest by a New Jersey girl in five years, since Myasia Jacobs of Paramus Catholic ran 6.84 in 2012. It’s been seven years since a South Jersey girl ran faster – 2016 Olympic 4-by-1 gold medalist English Gardner of Eastern ran 6.91 in 2010.

Mack’s time is No. 8 in the U.S. this year.

The only girl to ever run faster than Mack at the Bubble since it opened is Dominique Booker of Immaculate Conception, who went 6.92 at the 2009 Meet of Champions. Tori Robinson also had a 6.95 at the Bubble, in the 2014 Meet of Champions final.

Here is the all-time New Jersey list, with every girl who’s run 7.00 or faster:

• 6.73 … Michelle Glover (Willingboro), 1981
• 6.79 … Wendy Vereen (Trenton), 1984
• 6.84 … Myasia Jacobs (Paramus Catholic), 2012
• 6.87 … Aleah Williams (Montclair), 1998
• 6.88 … Patti Dunlap (Camden), 1979
• 6.91 … English Gardner (Eastern), 2010
• 6.92 … Dominique Booker (Immaculate Conception), 2010
• 6.93 … Ogechi Nwaneri (Chatham), 2008
• 6.94 … Stephanie Saleem (Neptune), 1985
• 6.95 … Bria Mack (Williamstown), 2017
• 6.95 … Torie Robinson (Winslow Twp.), 2014
• 6.95 … Denise Mitchell (Edgewood), 1983
• 6.97 … Melisa barber (Montclair), 1998
• 6.97 … Jenna Harris (Franklin), 2003
• 7.00 … Amandi Rhett (Moorestown), 2000
• 7.00 … Haisha Bisiolu (Union), 2015

And here’s a much deeper all-time South Jersey list that puts some perspective on the performances this year of South Jersey’s sprinters. Mack, Taylor and Iyanli Kollock of Our Lady of Mercy are now at No. 4, No. 8 and No. 9 in South Jersey history.

Hopefully, they all meet in the Meet of Champions final, at Easterns and a bunch of times this spring!

• 6.73 … Michelle Glover (Willingboro), 1981
• 6.88 … Patti Dunlap (Camden), 1979
• 6.91 … English Gardner (Eastern), 2010
• 6.95 … Bria Mack (Williamstown), 2017
• 6.95 … Torie Robinson (Winslow Twp.), 2014
• 6.95 … Denise Mitchell (Edgewood), 1983
• 7.00 … Amandi Rhett (Moorestown), 2000
• 7.01 … Aliyah Taylor (Rancocas Valley), 2017
• 7.03 … Iyanli Kollock (Our Lady of Mercy), 2017
• 7.05 … Dana Burnett (Williamstown), 1996
• 7.07 … Annie Johnson (Shawnee), 2012
• 7.07 … Audrey Wilson (Deptford), 2009
• 7.07 … Magenta Taylor (Willingboro), 1999
• 7.07 … Angela Clyburn (Egg Harbor Twp.), 1991
• 7.09 … Ste’yce McNeil (Winslow Twp.), 2012
• 7.09 … Emily Carson (Haddonfield), 2013
• 7.11 … Jamie Walker (Haddon Hts.), 2006
• 7.12 … Assante Johnson (Camden), 2009
• 7.14 … Shonda Burroughs (Vineland), 1999
• 7.17 … Nia Lawrence (Pemberton), 2013
• 7.17 … Kiara Lester (Deptford), 2014
• 7.17 … Krystal Cantey (Winslow Twp.), 2006
• 7.18 … Sherese Price (Pleasantville), 1997
• 7.19 … Latoya Benson (Washington Twp.), 2001
• 7.19 … Adia Starnes (Timber Creek), 2017
• 7.20 … Medina Salaam (Camden), 1974
• 7.20 … Nia Ali (Pleasantville), 2006
• 7.20 … Fametta Lewis (Wilson), 2007
• 7.20 … Tacquaya Tobias (Our Lady of Mercy), 2010
• 7.20 … Cidae’a Woods (Winslow Twp.), 2013
• 7.20 … Gabrielle Farquharson (Williamstown), 2011

Northern Burlington Regional senior Kayla Jackson recorded an impressive double sprint win at the Central Jersey Group 3 meet over the weekend at the Bubble, winning the 55 in a PR 7.40 and the 400 with an indoor PR 58.59.

Jackson won the 400 by 10 meters over Maria Amalfitano of Freehold Boro, who placed second in 1:00.25. Jackson’s time broke her indoor PR of 1:00.55, set earlier this season at a SJTCA meet at the Bubble. She ran her outdoor PR of 57.17 at outdoor Group 3 states at South Plainfield in May of 2015.

In the 55, Jackson ran 7.45 in the trials and followed that with a PR 7.40 to win the final by a stride and a half over Jaela Thomas of Brick Memorial, who ran 7.51 for second. Her PR had been 7.42 at the Bubble last month.

With Jackson’s two wins and a fifth-place by Alivia Scott in the 55, Northern finished fifth in team scoring with 22 points.

The only other New Jersey girls to run as fast as Jackson — 7.40 for the 55 and sub-59 for the 400 — are Aliyah Taylor of Rancocas Valley (7.03, 56.32), Flora Ahiarakwe of Winslow (7.23, 58.34), Katie DiFranceso of St. John Vianney (7.37, 57.98) and Shakira Dancy of Winslow (7.28, 58.19).

Going into states Saturday at the Bubble, Jackson ranks tied for ninth in South Jersey this year in the 55 and fourth in the 400. Jackson, Ahiarakwe and Dancy will all clash in both the 55 and the 400 at states Saturday.

Jackson is Northern’s first indoor sectional double-winner ever and NBC’s first sectional double winner indoors or outdoors since Erica Davis won the shot (40-2 1/2) and discus (131-8) at the outdoor Group 2 meet in 2003.

The last Northern Burlington double sectional winner on the track was Colleen Sunderland in the Group 2 1,600 and 3,200 in 1995 (5:09.3, 10:56.5).