Well that was awesome, the Union Catholic girls running 8:59.78 US#6 and Ridge boys with a 7:38.48 US#1 made it a victorious New Jersey sweep in the Championship 4x800m Relays during New Balance Nationals Outdoor on Saturday.
The Ridge boys are now fifth all-time in state history with their 7:38.48, their season best heading into the meet was their Meet of Champions winning 7:44.46 a week earlier on June 8th.
Their splits from their National Championship run went as follows: Alex Sargen - 1:58.84, Luke Roberts - 1:55.58, Will Pinto - 1:53.32, and Ryan Lindrud 1:50.76.
Pinto had the baton in third and moved the Ridge boys into first with the fastest third leg split of the event at 1:55.58 then Ryan Lindrud had a battle over the final 800m swapping the lead before coming back to finish first on a solid 1:50 anchor.
The Union Catholic girls had shown how strong their 4x800m squad could be with their 9:00.36 run at Penn Relays. Since then they've been winning local and state titles spreading their talent around and dominating multiple events, this week they went all in once again on the 4x800m and it showed with an 8:59.78 to win by just over a second ahead of Ohio's Beavercreek.
UC ran with Morgan Williams on lead off at 2:16.78, to Jerika Lufrano who took over the lead splitting 2:14.43, Ashleigh Patterson 2:18.40, and the final anchor a 2:10.17 by Leena Morant. The 2:14.43 by Lufrano to take the lead was the fastest second leg split of all the teams competing.
The last state to sweep the NBNO Championship 4x800m races was New York in 2017 when the Northport boys and Shoreham-Wading River girls took home gold.
The Ridge girls who also have a great history with this event and won the Meet of Champions last week finished as All-Americans in fifth running 9:03.39.