Weekly Recap: Bartlett Runs NJ #2 All-Time Mile

Spring track isn’t over yet! In addition to last Wednesday’s NJSIAA Meet of Champions (see recap here), there were a couple other meets where Mercer County runners kept their seasons going.

HOKA Festival of Miles

Photo by @ridge.smith.media

Blair Bartlett’s historic season keeps getting more incredible every week. Her latest eye-popping time was a 4:39.62 mile!

The Lawrenceville sophomore ran that time on Thursday night in St. Louis at the HOKA Festival of Miles, a prestigious invite-only national meet that consistently hosts most of the fastest miles in the country every year. This year was no exception – Thursday’s race was won by the phenomenal Jane Hedengren from Timpview UT, who broke the U20 national record with a mindblowing 4:23.50.

In the race behind Hedengren, Bartlett firmly asserted herself as a major challenger in the chase pack. She stuck with it, even running towards the front at times, as an opening 809m of 2:18.1 whittled the pack down to seven girls. She fell back just slightly on the third lap (71.2) but then gritted out a very strong last lap (70.3) to move up and finish 6th overall. 

4.39.62 was a 4-second improvement on her own Mercer County record. Even more impressively, it was also #2 all-time in New Jersey, just 0.4 off the state record of 4:39.25 by Southern Regional’s Danielle Tauro in 2006. There was also an FAT line at 1600m, which gave Bartlett an official mark of 4:37.99. That’s also #2 all-time, just barely behind the new state record of 4:37.65 that Union Catholic’s Paige Sheppard ran one day earlier at the NJSIAA Meet of Champions.

Next up for Bartlett, who in March was selected as a member of the Nike Elite National Development Program, will be Nike Outdoor Nationals on June 19-22 in Portland, Oregon. You can catch RunnerSpace’s post-race interview with the Lawrenceville star here.

Holmdel Twilight Series Royal Rumble

On Monday night, Princeton, Hightstown, and WWP North brought a few athletes to the Holmdel Twilight Series Royal Rumble. The meet’s main event was the 1600m – which had 27 heats – but there were some good field events and relays, too. Full results here.

In the 1600m, WWP North’s Sara Secora took 6th place in the girls seeded section with a 5:15.61, just about equaling her season’s best. She smartly stayed in the back of the pack for the first 400m – as almost the entire field went through in a very aggressive 71-72 – before moving up nicely, including catching three girls on the final lap.

Other top girls from Mercer County were WWP North’s Evelyn Yang (5:31.30), Princeton’s Rosemary Warren (5:31.72) and Princeton’s Eowyn Deess (5:33.60).

The top Mercer County boy was WWP North sophomore Paul Wittenberg. Even after having run a nice 3200m PR at groups just a couple days earlier, he recovered well enough to run a 4-second 1600m PR of 4:30.04 to finish 20th overall here. That time is #7 in Mercer County this spring. His teammate Veejhay Roy PR’d by even more with a 4:33.53 for 31st place.

Hightstown’s Mateo Abad-Delgado had been focusing on the 3200m during the championship season, but he dropped back down to the 1600m here and obliterated his PR by 11 seconds, running 4:33.69 to win his heat convincingly. His teammate Mason Johnson came within a half-second of winning the prior heat with his own huge PR of 4:38.57. 

Princeton senior Felix Farrguia is graduating a sub-4:40 guy after running a 4-second PR of 4:36.38. Other Mercer County boys who won their heats with big PRs included WWP North’s Akash Myadam (4:42.74) and Hightstown’s Dhruva Sribuddjarju (4:48.97).

In the high jump, Hightstown senior Sylvester Somerselle, who is one of the top triple jumpers in the state, joined the 20’ club in the long jump with a 20-0 for 3rd place. His junior teammate Terrance Williams, a star sprinter, did the long jump at an invitation for the first time ever and soared to 19-10.5 for 4th place.

Hightstown had relay teams take 2nd place in both the boys 800m SMR (1:38.65) and girls 800m SMR (1:56.22).