MEET Record! Ishmael Muhammad of Oakcrest Breaks 800m Record!


Ishmael Muhammad winning his Group meet in the 800m. / Photo by MaroonNews for MileSplit

Please note that this article previously had Ishmael Muhammad breaking the State Record, I apologize for the error. Due to having incorrect information I was wrong in stating so. He did break the meet record set by Robby Andrews in 2009 however and was less than a second of the state record. 

Before we even get to the meet record let's just say that this was one fast field. Thirteen under 1:55. nine under 1:54, a 1:50 gets you third place and a 1:49 gets you SECOND???!!! Yes that happened on Wednesday as a stacked seeded section of the 800 meter run toed the line in front of a huge crowd at the NJSIAA State Meet of Champions. 

    Name                    Year School                  Seed     Finals  H#

============================================================================
  1  US#2 Ishmael Muhammad    12 Oakcrest             1:50.65    1:48.52   3 
  2  US#4 Joe White           12 DePaul               1:52.22    1:49.08   3 
  3 US#10 Morgan Murray       12 South Brunswick      1:52.30    1:50.62   3 
  4  1256 Ross Clarke         12 Franklin             1:54.31    1:52.92   3 
  5  1274 Patrik Andersen     11 Gill St. Bernard     1:53.70    1:53.06   3 
  6  1498 Jhonathan Matamoro  12 Memorial (Wny)       1:54.91    1:53.32   3 
  7  1607 Danny Cordeiro      SR North Arlington      1:55.36    1:53.37   2 
  8  1262 Javon Pittman       12 Franklin             1:55.33    1:53.84   2 
  9  2061 Kevin Cianfarini    12 West Deptford        1:53.75    1:53.98   3 
 10  2043 Sam Defabrizio      12 Voorhees             1:54.56    1:54.30   3 
 11  1571 Kyle Larsson        12 Morristown-Beard     1:55.98    1:54.72   2 
 12  1156 Colin Chehanske     12 Colts Neck           1:56.07    1:54.87   1 
 13  1574 Ben DeVenezia       11 Mountain Lakes       1:56.10    1:54.91   1 
 14  1728 Justin Leandre      12 Pingry               1:55.60    1:55.24   2 
 15  1944 Kevin Mazzella      11 Shore                1:56.92    1:55.63   1 

Ishmael Muhammad of Oakcrest took the first lap out at a wicked pace with a 51 split at the 400m. By that point Ishmael had put a solid gap in between himself and the rest of the field. Joe White of Depaul Catholic and Morgan Murray of South Brunswick both ran fantastic races as well and made a move with 200 meters to go to try and catch Ishmael but it just wasn't going to happen. They now rank US#3 and US#10!

Ishmael crossed the line at a historic time of 1:48.52. Why is that historic? Well one he broke the awesome meet record set by the great Robby Andrews in 2009 at 1:48.66. Two he was SOOOO CLOSE to breaking the long time state record which still stands at a time of 1:48.44 by John Marshall from in back in 1981!

This was his first time going under 1:50, in fact he had only reached the 1:50 mark the weekend previous running a then personal best of 1:50.65 at Groups. With his Meet of Champions time of 1:48.52 he now ranks US#2. 

This great New Jersey athlete who took down a meet record set by a now professional runner will be attending Villanova University next fall.  


Click the graph for a larger view.