After narrowly beating Dani Jones at the Prefontaine Classic, Ryen Frazier gets to race her again - plus 4 other girls that have run under 4:42!
Next week, a large chunk of the US high school track population will descend on Greensboro for New Balance Nationals. This weekend, however, North Carolina athletes are on the road, with five headed North and two headed South. As part of their Grand Prix this weekend at Icahn Stadium in New York, adidas is staging the high school Dream Mile and Dream 100 races. In their short lives, these events have garnered serious national credibility, and meet management has gathered elite fields for all four. North Carolina has 5 athletes participating: four that earned automatic berths by winning qualifying races at the Raleigh Relays, and one who received an at-large invitation very early in the spring.
More Dream Mile/Dream 100 Coverage
- Meet Page
- Entries By Event
- Preview & Predictions: Girls | Boys
Girls Dream Mile
This is the only event where North Carolina has more than one entry. Ryen Frazier received one of the earliest invitations to the race, on the heels of her stellar indoor season. She has to be considered one of the favorites for this race, as she won the high school mile in the Prefontaine Classic just two weekends ago. The field for this race is loaded, though, and it may not be an exaggeration to say that this is the toughest set of opponents Frazier has ever faced. There's also the matter of her sister's all-time state record of 4:39.17 for the full mile, which Ryen trails by only 0.67 seconds. (And just in case anyone was wondering whether her absence from the NCISAA state meet indicated an injury, it did not.)
The other Tar Heel State participant is Malia Ellington, who earned her spot by winning the mile at the adidas Raleigh Relays. She has been a little behind last year's times all indoor and outdoor - or had been, until she cranked an all-time PR of 2:09.81 in the 800 last weekend. If that is any indication, Ellington could be ready for her first sub-4:50 mile!
Girls Dream 100
It's a good thing Sydnei Murphy is running the best 100 times of her life right now - as evidenced by her wind-legal 11.68 last weekend, on a track surface not noted for its sprint speed. She is going head-to-head with two sub-11:30 sprinters this weekend in Candace Hill and Teahna Daniels, not to mention another Florida stud, Khalifa St. Fort. This is going to be a fast race, despite cooler temperatures in New York (77 and cloudy is the forecast, which is a LOT better than some past Dream 100 races). Could this be the race that pulls Murphy under 11.60? If so, she would move into the top 5 on the state's all-time list.
Boys Dream Mile
It's not usual for us to hear about Philip Hall being a serious underdog, but that's the truth in this race. Call him a sleeper, though, because his 1:50 last weekend shows that he clearly has the speed to hang with the big dogs in this race. With Grant Fisher, one of 7 US high-schoolers ever to break 4 minutes, leading the way, this should be a blisteringly fast race. Going under 4:10 won't get Hall anywhere against this field, although it would put him in the top 15 in North Carolina history. To stay close to the leaders, Hall would have to go under 4:05 - and though I won't put that past him, that's a tall order for a man with a lifetime PR of 4:12.
Boys Dream 100
Cravont Charleston punched his ticket to New York when he won the qualifying race in Raleigh in March, overcoming unusually cold temperatures in the process. Since then he has been a little inconsistent, although he did post a wind-aided 10.47 at the NCHSAA 4A state meet. He seems to have had problems closing out his races, and he will need to reach top gear to stay close to the leaders this weekend. The big story in the race is Michael Norman's attempt to lead the nation in all three sprint races - he already sits at US #1 in the 200 and 400, but getting ahead of Ryan Clark's win-legal 10.26 might be difficult for the young man known primarily as a long sprinter.