Pleasantville alumna Nia Ali wins NCAA Division I high hurdles championship for Southern Cal
Pleasantville High School alumna Nia Ali won the women’s 100-meter high hurdles title to lead the University of Southern California women’s track and field team to a sixth-place finish at the NCAA Division I track and field championships in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday.
Ali, a redshirt senior who graduated from Pleasantville in 2006, won with a wind-aided personal record of 12.63 seconds at Drake Stadium.
Ohio State’s Christina Manning finished second in 12.72 .
The former Press first-team All-Star became the first graduate of a high school in Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland or southern Ocean counties to win an NCAA Division I title in track and field.
She also was USC’s only individual champion this season and the school’s third ever in the high hurdles, joining Patty Van Wolvelaere and Virginia Powell .
She earned the Trojans 10 points in the team competition, moving them into sixth place.
“Nia Ali leaves as an All-American, an NCAA champion and second to Virginia Powell in school history in the 100-meter hurdles,” Trojans director of track and field Ron Allice said on the team’s website. “Any time you run under 12.7 in the hurdles, you are elite, not just collegiately but on the national level. I think she has a chance to do well at the professional level.
“This was her first year focusing exclusively on the hurdles. It was a major accomplishment, and she goes down as one of the top female athletes at USC. She was an All-American in the heptathlon and then focuses on one event and becomes the best in the nation. You hope in the recruiting process you can find an athlete like Ali because that is what it takes to perform at this level.”
Ali also earned All-American honors in the high jump, finishing sixth at 5 feet, 10.75 inches on Thursday. Brigetta Barrett of Arizona won at 6-1 1/4.
Also Saturday, Oakcrest High School alumna Nijgia Snapp ran the anchor leg on the University of Tennessee’s women’s 4×400 relay team. The Vols finished seventh in 3 minutes, 32.15 seconds.
Texas A&M’s dream of becoming the first school with three straight men’s and women’s team titles came down to the final two races of the NCAA championships.
The Aggie men needed to take first in the 1,600-meter relay outright to claim a third straight crown. The women needed to beat Oregon in the 1,600 and finish in the top three to overtake LSU.
Texas A&M won both relays and the national titles in thrilling style, proving once again that the Aggies are the powerhouse program in outdoor track and field.
RESULTS
100 Hurdles
1, Nia Ali, Southern Cal, 12.63.
2, Christina Manning, Ohio State, 12.72.
3, Jackie Coward, UCF, 12.79.
4, LaTisha Holden, Arizona, 12.89.
5, Letecia Wright, Ohio State, 13.00.
6, Kierre Beckles, South Carolina, 13.05.
7, Michaylin Golladay, Clemson, 13.07.
8, Ti’erra Brown, Miami, 13.19.
High Jump
1, Brigetta Barrett, Arizona, 6-1 1/4.
2, Victoria Lucas, Texas, 6-0.
3, Shanay Briscoe, Texas, 6-0.
4, Ke’Airra Jones, Southern Miss, 6-0.
5, Rachel Gehret, Louisville, 6-0.
6, Nia Ali, Southern Cal, 5-10 3/4.
7 , Brittani Carter, LSU and Kristen Meister, California, 5-10 3/4.
9 , Emily Breslin, Purdue, and Ada Robinson, BYU, 5-10 3/4.
11 , Monika Jakutyte, Wisconsin, and Beverly Owoyele, Texas, 5-10 3/4.
