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

Jun 05, 2014

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#

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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.