Natalie Dumas of Eastern, one of the biggest recruits in NJ history, made her eagerly awaited college decision on Tuesday night.
During a gathering with family and friends at the Comfort Inn in Voorhees, Dumas announced that she will be attending the University of Arkansas!
Dumas, who visited the following schools in this order: South Carolina, Miami, Duke, Georgia, Florida, Vanderbilt, and Arkansas, sent the track and field world into a frenzy when she set the oval on fire last spring with one of the greatest seasons in U.S. high school history!
The Razorbacks are getting one of the greatest high school track and field athletes in U.S. history!
The biggest highlights for the indefatigable senior at Eastern came when she threw down a pair of historic triples at both the NJSIAA Meet of Champions and the New Balance National Championships last June.
At the Meet of Champions at Pennsauken High on June 4, Dumas became the first person ever to win the 400m hurdles, the 400m, and the 800m!
Dumas won the 400 hurdles for the second straight year in 1:00.25, repeated as champion in the 400 in 53.16, matching her winning time last year, and less than 30 minutes later, she won the 800 in a meet record 2:02.45! She did that all in one day!
A couple of weeks later, at the NB Nationals at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Dumas showcased her breathtaking and electrifying talent once again by completing a head-spinning triple when she became the first woman in the history of the world to run 51.14 for 400, 2:00.11 for 800, and 55.99 for the 400 hurdles!!
In her trifecta for the ages, Dumas won all 3 races and shattered the meet records in each race, broke the NJ records in the 400 (she had shared it with the legendary Sydney McLaughlin-Levonre) and the 800 (the great Ajee' Wilson held it), and dropped some of the fastest times ever run in U.S. high school history! Her 51.14 and 55.99 are No. 6 in U.S. high school history, and her 2:00.11 in the 800 is No. 5 all-time.
Dumas also earned All-American honors at the NB Nationals with a 2:03.90 anchor split on the runner-up SMR squad!! So she was a quadruple All-American!
The 2:00.11 by Dumas is No. 8 on the all-time U.S. Under-20 list and makes her the 8th fastest NJ woman ever on any level!!! Trenton's Athing Mu, the current American outdoor record holder in the 800 and the 2021 Olympic gold medalist in the 800, is No. 1 on the U.S. U20 list, and Wilson is No. 2 at 1:58.21.
The legendary Dumas is the second fastest junior in U.S. high school history in the 800. The only junior to go faster is Mary Cain of New York, who went 1:59.51 at the 2013 Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field in Oregon.
She did all that at the age of 16!!
This season, Dumas has been her usual sizzling self.
In the first 600 of her career this past Sunday, she finished first in 1:28.10, No. 2 in NJ history and No. 5 in U.S. history!
Did you know that she's also run 4:55.66 for 1600m, 24.02 for 200m, ran 20:26 for 5K at Holmdel Park last fall, and recently ran 19:19 to place 10th at the Olympic Conference XC Championships at Dream Park.
