The 2024 Outdoor Track and Field season is off to a hot start at both the high school and college levels, as seen last weekend with two highlight performances that took place beyond Ohio borders with (now representing NC State) Grace Hartman (Oakwood 2022) at the Raleigh Relays, along with the star freshman, Jamier Averette-Brown (Wayne 2027) at Hardin Valley Invitational.
Photo by David Nguyen
Grace Hartman - Raleigh Relays - 10,000m Run
Starting with Hartman, she has made quite the transition from the high school to the college level since graduating from her alma mater, Oakwood, to now representing the Wolfpack NC State. Since entering college, she has been a part of a Distance Medley Relay that made the podium at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships, a national title winning team in cross country followed by an All-American performance in the 5000m Run at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships.
Just a few days ago, she opened up her sophomore year at the Raleigh Relays, making some early noise in the NCAA in the distance events during her first ever time racing the 10,000m, clocking a 32:28.89, which currently stands as the second fastest time in the NCAA this spring. This was also just a few seconds off of both the facility and meet record of 32:21.13.
As of now, as an underclassman, she also set overall personal bests this year during the most recent indoor season of 4:36.52 in the Mile and 15:28.57 in the 5000m Run.
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Jamier Averette-Brown - Hardin Valley Invitational 2024 - 100m/200m Dash
Just coming off of a national title in the 60m Dash at adidas Track Nationals, Averette-Brown has kept the momentum going into the early half of the outdoor season as the freshman to look out for not just in Ohio, but in the country as well. Travelling south to Knoxville, Tennessee for the Hardin Valley Invitational, he pulled off the sprint-double, clocking a 10.63 in the 100m Dash and 21.52 in the 200m Dash.
Within the state rankings, he is currently OH #2 in the 100m Dash and OH #1 in the 200m Dash. Looking at the big picture, the 10.63 performance puts him at US #6 for freshman, while the 21.52 currently slots him at US #2 for his respective class.
See below for his interview and race videos
100m Dash
200m Dash