Sunday, July 05, 2015

USATF Hershey Youth Champs wrap up exciting week

 

7/5/2015
 
LISLE, Illinois -- An eventful week, featuring some of the best youth athletes in the country, came to a close in Lisle, Illinois,  where 73 more champions were crowned on Sunday in various events at the USATF Hershey Youth National Outdoor Championships at Benedictine University.

100-meter sprinters started the final day with a multitude of tight final races. Shandall Thomas (Hanover Park, Illinois) finished with the top overall time to win the 17-18 men’s division in 10.81. The 15-16 boys age group featured a field of finalists all posting preliminary times under 12 seconds, including Anthony Schwartz (Pembroke Pines, Florida) who came out the victor in 10.87.

In the first 100m of the day, the 7-8 girls division almost gave a packed crowd a new American youth record. Payton Payne (Lanham, Maryland) ran away from the field to finish at 14.25, only .01 behind the current record.

The 200-meter hurdles provided quite the finish as well in the 13-14 boys division, as Amari Johnson (Mooresville, North Carolina) escaped Darius Luff (Lincoln, Nebraska) by .01 seconds with a final time of 26.42.

Caitlin Worline-Thompson (Inglewood, California) finished ahead of the 13-14 girls field in the 200mH at 28.68.

Rahman Minor (Indianapolis, Indiana) won a close 17-18 men high jump. Minor cleared 2.05 /6-8.75 over Forest Moses (Highland Park, Illinois) and Noah Adams (Blue Mound, Illinois), who both topped out at 2m/6-6.75.

Riley Richards (China Spring, Texas) set the week’s highest pole vault bar at 4.55m/14-11 in the 17-18 men’s final.

The 400m races were highlighted by a slew of competitors, keeping times under 50 seconds. Nicholas Wilson (Accokeek, Maryland) was the day’s first athlete to break the threshold with his finish of 49.40 in the 13-14 boys division. Anthony Schwartz (Pembroke Pines, Florida) completed a lengthy comeback down the final stretch to finish in 49.60.

Tyler Johnson (Dayton, Ohio) had the fastest overall time in the quarter-mile, winning the 17-18 men’s division in 46.80.

The boys’ 400mH provided two close finishes as Aaron Hanible (Brentwood, California) battled Joshua Browning (Stone Mountain, Georgia) wire to wire in the 15-16 division. Hanible earned the win in 56.55 with Browning right behind in 56.83.

The 17-18 men’s hurdles produced another photo finish between Ronaldo Griffiths (Brooklyn, New York) and William Session (Belleville, Illinois). Griffiths posted a time of 53.42 narrowly escaping Session, who ran a 53.46.

Paula Salmon (Brooklyn, New York) took the 400mH title in the girls’ 15-16 division with her time of 1:03.22. Right on her heels was Yolonda Johnson (Beloit, Wisconsin), clocking 1:03.91.

Thomas Mosley (Beach Park, Illinois) wrapped up one of the most impressive individual performances throughout the week, winning the 15-16 boys 1,500-meter at 4:08.06 by a comfortable margin.

The 17-18 women wrapped up the 400mH finals as Trackmyspeed dominated this division’s finals with Miya Dorsey (Belleville, Illinois) and Savannah Long (Dekalb, Illinois) going 1-2. Dorsey won at 1:01.91, dropping 1.73 seconds from her prelim time earlier this weekend.

Watch video on demand on USATF.tv, and continue the conversation by following USATF on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using the hashtag #USATFyouth.

Click here for official results from the entire week.

This year’s USATF Hershey Youth Outdoor Championships was held in conjunction with the World Trials Youth Meet. The top athletes, ages 16-17, will represent USATF at the 2015 IAAF World Youth Championships in Cali, Colombia. View the complete roster here.

Olivia Odle & Ryan Stevens
USATF Communications Interns
Olivia.Odle@usatf.org - Ryan.Stevens@usatf.org

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