Former Edwin Allen High and Jamaican junior representative Lashanna Graham smashed the Barton County College women's 400m hurdles record after winning the event in a time of 58.39 seconds at the Jo Meaker Classic at Western Texas A&M University on Saturday.

In only her third hurdles race of the season, Graham, who won the event at the Inter-secondary Schools Sports Association boys' and girls' athletics championship (“Champs”) in 2019 and has a personal best 57.36 seconds, moved into the top 10 in the National Junior College Athletics Association rankings.

There were also wins for her teammates and compatriots Shakwon Coke and Tyrese Reid, as well as Kimeone McLeod and Javed Jones of New Mexico.

Graham, who was a finalist in the 400m hurdles at the Pan American Under-20 Athletics Championships in 2019 in Costa Rica, opened the season with a 1:00.83 minutes for third place at the Louisianna Classic on March 20 and had taken over seventh place on the Barton list a week later when she ran 1:00.05 at the Cowley Classic.

Saturday's run saw her break the previous Barton record of 58.80 seconds held by Meka Rembert in 1994 as well as the 58.91 seconds set by compatriot Andrea Sutherland at the 2009 National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) championships.

Coke, who had a big 8.16m effort a week ago in the long jump, won the triple jump with 15.60m (2.0) with just two attempts and took over the NJCAA lead in the process.

Reid won his first 800m race outdoors, clocking 1:52.29 minutes, second best in the NJCAA after he had run the 400m and 1500m earlier.

McLeod, formerly of St Jago High, won the women's 100m hurdles in 13.64 seconds (1.4m/s), while former B B Coke runner Javed Jones ran a personal best 51.95 seconds to win the men's 400m hurdles.

Kayan Green of Barton Community College was third in the women's 800m in 2:12.38 minutes, while her teammate Graham also ran 2:18.36. Compatriots Sasha Brown ran 2:19.03 and Abigail Pinnock of Garden City registered 2:26.93.

Former Holmwood Technical's Susan Francis of New Mexico Junior College was third in the long jump with a wind-aided 6.10m (2.5m/s), Nia Robinson of Barton was fourth with a wind-aided 6.01m (2.2m/s) and Annia Ashley 10th with 5.64 (-0.9m/s).

Ashley was fifth in the triple jump with 12.42m (1.9m/s), Robinson was seventh with a wind-aided 12.31m (3.2m/s), and Francis 11th with 11.50m (2.3m/s).

Meanwhile, former Calabar High athletes Andrew Betton and Renaldo Savoury were fifth and sixth, respectively, in the decathlon with 5,543 points and 5,511 points.

— Paul Reid