The track and field competition is heating up in both college and high school as the season trails closer to the Olympics.
In high school competition, the nationally ranked St. John’s College High School boys and girls continued their dominance, capturing their fourth straight DCSAA championships at Dunbar High School in Northwest, º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½. A total of 16 records were broken during the two-day meet.
It was Nadia Lytle, a junior from School Without Walls who had one of the most outstanding individual performances in the championships, capturing both the shot put and discus titles, shattering the state record in both. She threw the discus 137.00 feet and 42 feet in the shot put.
“It’s a big deal for me,” said Lytle. “When you not only win but set records, it says a lot about how hard work pays off.”
She added that she just missed the shot-put record last year and it motivated her to eclipse it this year.
On the college side, Howard University had athletes punch their tickets for the NCAA finals.
For the women’s college athletes, graduate Simone Watkins finished with 55.92 clocking in the 400-meter hurdles at the NCAA regionals. The relay team of graduate Kailie Collins, junior Sherri-Anne Norton and freshmen Aiyana Gray-Williams and Mackenzie Robinson finished with a sizzling time of 44.26 in the 4X100 relays in the NCAA Regionals.
On the men’s college track side, graduate Samuel Bennett and senior Noah Langford both qualified for the NCAA Finals next week. Bennett finished with a 13.52 in the 110 hurdles while Langford turned in a 50.55 in the 400-meter hurdles
Former Archbishop Carroll track star Nyck Harbor, a freshman two-sport athlete at the University of South Carolina, continues to show that he is one of the top sprinters in the world. The former Northeast, D.C. high school student not only qualified for the NCAA Championships (June 5-8 in Eugene, OR) but also for the U.S. Olympic trials, scheduled for June 21-30, also in Eugene.
Harbor clocked in a personal best and school record 20.20 in the 200-meter sprint at the NCAA Regionals in Lexington, Kentucky this past weekend.
He has also qualified in the 100 meters with a time of 10.11.