UC Girls Won Their 9th Straight County Relay Title, Smash Record
Written by: Jim Lambert
The Union Catholic girls, who burned up the track with an electrifying performance in the shuttle hurdles, captured its eighth straight championship at the Union County Relays on Wednesday at the Jersey City Armory.
The biggest highlight of the meet came in the girls shuttle hurdles when senior Ajanae Thompson, (7.3), sophomore Taylor Cox NJ (7.4), junior Leah Gould (7.9), and senior Alexandra Bonn (7.9) nearly took down the state record with a sizzling 30.87, a Union County record and the second-fastest time in state history!! Winslow owns the state record of 30.74, which it set at the 2014 state Group 3 relays.
The UC girls now owns all six Union County records in the running events at the County Relays, the shuttles (30.74), the 4×200 (1:39.29 in 2015), the 4×400 (3:40.28 in 2016), the 4×800 (8:53.69), and SMR (3:58.46 in 2019), and the DMR (11:45.71 in 2022)
Union Catholic, which defeated runner-up Rahway, 56-30, will get one more shot at Winslow’s state record at the State Non-Public A Championships on Sunday, Jan. 13 at the Bennett Center in Toms River. The shuttle hurdles event with four hurdles isn’t run very often. The New Balance Nationals Championship meet uses five hurdles.
In addition to the victory in the shuttles, the UC girls also won the 4×200 in 1:43.10, the 4×800 in 10:28.08, and the sprint medley in 4:16.41, and placed second in the DMR, and second in the high jump. UC freshman Ebony Turner cleared a meet-best 5-0.
