CHESTER, Pa. — The New Jersey City University men's and women's track & field programs sent seven student-athletes out to Widener University on Monday afternoon, May 13, for the Pride's Last Chance meet. The Gothic Knights had a strong showing with six personal records, including graduate student Jaime Tlatelpa (Jersey City, N.J./University Academy Charter) taking down his own outdoor men's program record in the 1,500-meter event.

As mentioned, Tlatelpa competed in the 1,500m and placed 48th overall out of 66 runners with a time of 4:07.77, which was just over two seconds faster than his previous PR and program record. Also notching a PR in that same race to place 56th was graduate student Adnan Kpodo (Irvington, N.J./Irvington) with a time of 4:18.20 — that now ranks seventh all-time in the NJCU record books. Senior Jason Garcia (Jersey City, N.J./Dickinson) competed in the 100-meter dash and placed 24th out of 53 finishers with a time of 11.29.

Senior Topu Saha (Jersey City, N.J./William L. Dickinson) competed in the 5,000-meter race and he posted a personal-record time of 16:45.75, which now ranks eighth all-time in NJCU's outdoor record book. His previous PR in the event came during the 2022 indoor season (16:54.73). The other Gothic Knight male to PR on Monday was sophomore Pratt Charles (Jersey City, N.J./University Charter), who posted a distance of 6.66 meters in the long jump to place sixth out of 17 finishers. His previous PR came this past weekend at the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) Outdoor Championships (6.32m).

On the women's side of things, junior Reyanna Henderson (Pemberton, N.J./Pemberton Two) led the way with a couple of personal records in the 100m and 200-meter dash. She posted a time of 12.64 in the former, placing 10th out of 30 finishers and the notched a time of 25.45 to place sixth in the latter out of 29 finishers.

Senior Ayriana Young (Jersey City, N.J./McNair Academic), though she did not PR, followed up this past weekend's record-setting performance at NJACs with a second-place finish out of six runners at Widener in the 100-meter hurdles, crossing the finish line at 14.78.

UP NEXT — Outdoor All-Atlantic Region Track & Field Championships (AARTFC):
With the final last-chance qualifier now complete, the Gothic Knights look forward to AARTFC Outdoors, which will be hosted by SUNY Cortland on Wednesday and Thursday, May 15-16, in Cortland, N.Y.

NJCU has three student-athletes that qualified for the AARTFCs. With her time at Widener, Henderson officially qualified in the 200m. Freshman Jezena Aponte's (Jersey City, N.J./Snyder) 1,500m time at NJACs (4:49.23) qualifies her in that event and Young's NJAC 100m-hurdle time (14.54) qualifies her as well.