Week 4 Recap: Big Meets at Ocean Breeze
Mercer County’s runners, jumpers, and throwers stayed busy during the second half of the winter break. The biggest meet of the week was the CVC Relays on January 4th, and stayed tuned for a separate recap of those races. In the meantime, here are a few other results from the week of December 29 to January 4th that shouldn’t stay under the radar.
The Ocean Breeze Holiday Festival
A weekend snow storm pushed the Ocean Breeze Holiday Festival back two days to the afternoon of Monday, December 29, but Mercer County’s athletes and their coaches apparently adjusted plenty well, because there were plenty of outstanding performances. The large meet was split into a “red” division and a “white” division — with the red division generally being more competitive — along with a few smaller invitational events.
WWP South’s Julius Kinsler finishes second behind Ahijah Goins from the Haverford School in the 400m at the Ocean Breeze Holiday Festival. | Jackson Polin for MileSplit
The biggest highlight of the meet, at least from a Mercer County perspective, was the boys invitational 400m. In an exciting race that saw the top four boys go sub-49 and cross within 0.2 seconds of each other, WWP South’s Julius Kinsler dug deep in the final straightaway to move up and grab 2nd place in a phenomenal US #10 time of 48.82. Based on MileSplit’s records, that made Kinsler just the seventh Mercer County boy to ever go sub-49 indoors in the open 400m, and he’s the first to do it this early in the season.
Kinsler’s heat was so fast and furious that the race video got posted by MileSplit USA:
Ewing’s Dasan Jones also broke into the Top 10 in the invitational 400m with a 51.31 for 9th place.
The boys sprint relays were fast, too. The Ewing 4x200m team of Kha-Neaf Mack Hornsby, Domonique Jones, Tristan Thompson, and Dasan Jones ran a quick time of 1:33.62 to place 6th in the red division prelims and qualify for the final. That was faster than any team from Mercer County ran last year. The Blue Devils went on to take 6th place in the finals in 1:34.77. In the white division, Lawrence boys won their 4x200m heat in 1:35.18, which got them 4th place overall. That time exactly tied their season best from last winter, which finished at #3 in the county that year.
In other boys sprints events, WWP South’s Aydun Hines won his heat of the 55m in 6.82, which got him 23rd in the red division. In the white division of the 55m, Lawrence’s Jaquann Coleman placed 7th in the white division 55m with a 6.91, trimming 0.01 off his PR from last winter. Just behind him in the same heat was his teammate Isaiah Grier, who broke 7 for the first time with a 6.97 for 10th place in the white division. In the 55mH, Lawrence’s Alexander Nikolov placed 9th in the prelims of the white division 55mH with a 8.04. He just missed the finals but still came away with a new PR.
On the girls side, one of the fastest — and busiest — girls at the meet was Lawrence’s Samya Jenkins. In the red division 55m, she ran a season’s best of 7.44 in the prelims to qualify for the finals, where she ran a 7.52 for 6th place. A short while later, she split a blistering 25.5 on the anchor leg of the 4x200m to give the Cardinals (including her, Soraya Park, Zahra Cooper, and Sasha Glover) the heat win and 3rd place overall in the white division with a 1:51.08. To cap off her impressive quadruple, Jenkins raced in the invitational 400m — her first-ever open 400m at any major track meet — and finished 19th in 1:02.05.
Further up in the invitational 400m, Ewing’s Leah Daniels broke 60 in the 400m for the second straight week with a 59.88 for 10th place.
Ewing’s hurdlers crowded the top of the results at the Ocean Breeze Holiday Festival. In the red division 55mH, Ewing’s Angel Johnson ran 8.66 — just 0.01 off her PR — to earn the last spot in the finals, and then she matched her PR of 8.65 in the finals to take 8th place. Ewing also put four more girls in the Top 20 of the red division: sophomore Athena Green (16th in 9.49), senior Karis Crossland (17th in 9.55), junior Lynsah Rejouis (19th in 9.60), and junior Victoria Seaton (19th in 9.75). Seaton, Crossland, Green, and Johnson teamed up to take 2nd in the shuttle hurdles relay in 36.07.
In the 55m, Lawrence’s Sasha Glover took 41st in the red division with a 7.89, just 0.01 off her PR from last winter. Another Cardinal sprinter Zahra Cooper placed 8th in the white division in a PR of 8.13.
NJCTC Relays
Notre Dame had a strong day at the relay meet for the New Jersey Catholic Track Conference on December 30.
The Notre Dame boys sprint medley relay team of Jayden Davis, Zamir Jones, Aldric Crawford, and Amir Mulkey won the sprint medley relay at the NJCTC Relays in 4:41.80, holding off St. Peter’s Prep by just 0.16. Crawford and Jones also teamed up to win the long jump relay, with Crawford earning 3rd individually with a jump of 20-8.25 and Jones finishing 8th in 19-10. Sophomore Kendrick Mullen tied for 2nd place individually in the high jump with a clearance of 6-0.
On the girls’ side, Jamie Werdal tied her high jump PR of 4-10 to place 6th individually at the NJCTC Relays. In the long jump, sophomore D’Njah Tatum soared more than a foot beyond her old PR to place 7th in 15-11, and her teammate Nora Schmitz tied her PR of 15-1 to help the duo take 3rd place in the long jump relay. Schmitz additionally almost matched her PR in the shot put with a 27-9.75, and she and her teammate Danielle Marsh (27-5) combined for 4th place in the shot put relay.
Ocean Breeze Freedom Games
The Ocean Breeze facility hosted its second huge meet of the week, the Ocean Breeze Freedom Games, on January 3-4. While there were fewer Mercer County representatives at this meet — largely because it overlapped with the CVC Relays — the athlete who did show up delivered impressive performances.
Ewing’s Leah Daniels gets the baton from Faith Settles heading into the anchor leg of the 4×200m final at the Ocean Breeze Freedom Games. | Derrick Dingle for MileSplit
The Ewing girls brought the heat in the 4x200m and ran one of the fastest times in CVC history. After winning their prelims heat in a 1:46.69, the Blue Devils quartet dropped a 1:45.36 to take 2nd place in the final! While the team from South Lakes was out ahead of everyone, the Ewing girls won a tight battle to claim the runner-up spot on the podium. Angel Johnson put them in 2nd place with a great leadoff leg, Karis Crossland and Faith Settles both fended off multiple challenges to maintain the pole position, and then Leah Daniels sealed it with a blistering 25.04 anchor leg. Their time of 1:45.36 is a school record that elevates Ewing to #3 all-time in the CVC, and it also hit the automatic qualifying standard for New Balance Nationals Indoor.
Hun’s star thrower Anna Casciano remained undefeated on the season, dominating the Ocean Breeze Freedom Games with four straight throws of over 40 feet. Her longest was 42-1.5, which gave her three straight meets of breaking the 42-foot mark.
In the girls 1600m, Wilberforce junior Stella Blanchard earned the 3rd-place medal after crushing her outdoor PR with a 5:11.96. She used a monster kick — closing in 33.9 — to move from 4th to 2nd in her heat on the final lap. That was Blanchard’s second big meet of winter break: she also delivered an impressive double at the U.S. Marine Corps Holiday Classic at the Armory on December 27, where she ran 1:00.19 for 5th in the 400m and 2:23.54 for 4th in the 800m.
Also in the girls 1600m, Princeton Day freshman Kayla Peckens won her heat with a great performance. She took the lead halfway through and then held off all challengers to finish in 5:24.55. That was her first time going sub-5:30, and it got her 13th overall at the Freedom Games.