Both school and personal records were broken this weekend in the two meets the Profs appeared in.
Gabriella Pagano continued to prove her excellence at the Valentine Invitational in Boston. The senior ran the 5000-meter race with a time of 16:45.30. Her time not only surpassed her previous personal record, but broke the school record, previously held by Jenn Rawls’ time in 2010.
“I would definitely say a championship drive championship mindset,” said head coach Shedrick Elliott III.
This time now ranks sixth in division three for this season, but something that Pagano loves about meets like the Valentine Invitational is that she gets the opportunity to compete against division one athletes.
“It’s so special because it doesn’t matter what division you’re in. It doesn’t matter literally any of that stuff,” Pagano said. “It’s just you run a certain time, and we all go run it together. It’s really a cool opportunity because some of the people in my heat, you know, I was running against a Boston University woman, Penn State, Michigan, and it’s like you don’t get that opportunity often.”
Nyla Jones also took part in record-breaking, after mounting two new PRs at the Widener Indoor Classic. She finished the 200-meter with a time of 25.72, making that her new personal best.
The sprinter wasn’t done yet. Jones went on to dominate her 60-meter hurdles time in 8.69 seconds.
Amari Pinkett and Alaijah Wilson both posted personal bests at Widener. Pinkett ran a new PR in the 400 meters (58.58), and Wilson peaked at 11.36 meters in the shot, giving her a new personal record.
The team walked away with many personal bests, but the team has one thing at the front of their minds – the New Jersey Athletic Conference Championships (NJAC).
“We’re gonna do the absolute best we can, with a full team effort, just really focusing on controlling what we can control, and that’s going to be the theme when we have our team meeting Friday,” Elliott III said. “Our focus is simply not worrying about anybody else. It’s just simply control what we can control.”
The Profs will head over to Philadelphia this weekend for the NJAC Championships.
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