Delaware's fastest runners: The 30 greatest high school sprint and field event athletes

Members of this list possess some of Delaware's longest-standing records and most dominant individual meet performances.

There's Terry Thomas, the Howard thrower who has held the shot put and discus state records for more than 40 years. Glasgow Dragon Jernail Hayes, who at the 2006 state meet ran to first-place finishes in four individual events, including the 300 hurdles where she set a state record. Mike Roberts of Tower Hill, the first to win the same event at the state meet five times.

Those are just a few of the accolades you'll find in our list of the 30 greatest sprinters and field event athletes in Delaware history. As with all rankings, it follows an imperfect formula that attempts to compare athletes across disparate eras. I hope you'll see the project as an attempt, in some way, to tell the story of the sport of running in Delaware through its greatest figures.

• Monday: The greatest track and field athletes in Delaware ranked: 100-31

• Wednesday: Delaware's fastest: The best high school distance runners ever ranked 75-31

• Thursday: Delaware's fastest: The 30 greatest distance runners in First State history

• Friday: Delaware's fastest: 48 honorable mentions for our track and field list

30. Jazonte Levan, Seaford, 2024

⌚ State record for 200 meters (21.01), 2nd all-time 100 meters (10.57)

🥇 3 individual outdoor track state titles, 2 Meet of Champions wins

🏆 Outdoor track and field co-MVP in 2023

Ten days after Salesianum's Jasyn Truitt broke the 200 state record at last spring's New Castle County meet, Levan blazed the Abessinio Stadium track to crack the record again at the Meet of Champions, taking down Truitt and 100 champion Timothy Wright of Sussex Central in the process. At New Balance Nationals at Franklin Field the following month, Levan ran 20.95 to finish fourth in the 200.

In his final outdoor track season this spring, Levan could become the first since Glasgow's Leshon Collins in 2012 to claim the 100 and 200 state records.

29. Charlee Crawford, St. Georges, 2021

⌚ 3rd all-time 400 meters (54.55), 10th 200 meters (24.52)

🥇 6 individual outdoor track state titles, 3 Meet of Champions wins

In 2018, Crawford was the fastest freshman in the nation in the 400. With each passing year, her talent and dedication continued to appear — every time she stepped on the track for a 200 or 400 at an outdoor state championship meet Crawford took the win.

The COVID-19 pandemic stole a chance for four in a row at those distances. After the interruption, she reasserted herself atop the state a final time. Crawford came to sprinting from a gymnastics background. "Train as hard as you can, because you never know what's going to happen," she said in 2021.

28. Alexandra Coppadge, Wilmington Friends, 2006

⌚ 3rd all-time 100-meter hurdles (14.14), 12th 300-meter hurdles (44.36)

🥇 7 individual outdoor track and field state titles, 5 Meet of Champions wins

📏 T-5th all-time high jump (5-6)

Before she entered high school, Coppadge was already a 14-time USA Track and Field All-American in the high jump, 100 and 400 hurdles, pentathlon and heptathlon. She started competing for Wilmington Friends as a sophomore — the school previously didn't have a track and field team — and immediately became one of the state's best and most versatile athletes, three times earning All-American status in the pentathlon and placing second in the heptathlon at the 2010 Penn Relays.

Coppadge had regular battles with Glasgow's Jernail Hayes, also one of the state's best hurdlers. At the season-ending Meet of Champions, Coppadge won every event she entered.

27. Mykele Young-Sanders, Dover, 2015

🥇 8 individual outdoor track state titles, 6 Meet of Champions wins

⌚ 2nd all-time 110-meter hurdles (14.05), T-6th 300-meter hurdles (37.85)

In 2015, Young-Sanders overcame a mid-season injury to complete an unprecedented three-year sweep of the hurdles events at the state meet and Meet of Champions and lead Dover to its first outdoor team title since 2004. His 14.05 personal best in the 110 hurdles missed the state record established in 1985 by Delcastle's Eric Cannon by a hundredth of a second. Indoors, he is tied for third all-time in the 55 hurdles and has the fastest-ever 60 hurdles time.

26. Mike Roberts, Tower Hill, 1998

🥇 14 individual outdoor track and field state titles, 10 individual New Castle County titles

📏 3rd all-time triple jump (49-5.5), T-9th high jump (6-8)

🏆 1998 outdoor track and field state MVP

Few have come close to matching Roberts' string of excellence in the jumps. Roberts won five consecutive Division II state championships in high jump and four straight in triple jump. He graduated with the triple jump state record and also won state titles in the 110 hurdles, 300 hurdles and long jump. Roberts was the first male to win the same event four straight years at the New Castle County Championships. He led Tower Hill to three Division II team titles.

25. Brieanna Kennedy, Caravel, 2008

📏 2nd all-time shot put (44-11.5), 3rd discus (144-8)

🥇 8 individual outdoor track and field state titles, 6 Meet of Champions wins

🏆 2008 outdoor track and field state MVP

Kennedy's throwing career began when she was 10 when her father, Brandt, one Thursday brought home a shot put. That day ended in a two-hour long backyard practice. By the end of the weekend, Kennedy won her first meet and before long she and her brother Bobby were state champion throwers at Caravel under Brandt's direction. A five-time Division II champion in discus, she graduated with state records in shot put and discus. Kennedy was the first Delaware girl to win a high school individual event at the Penn Relays: the javelin.

24. Ukee Washington, Dover, 1976

🥇 4 individual outdoor track state titles

⌚ T-6th all-time 300-meter hurdles (37.85), 11th 110-meter hurdles (14.28)

Before he became a CBS 3 anchor, Washington was one of Delaware's best high school basketball players and hurdlers. At the 1976 Henlopen Conference Championships, he set state records in the high and intermediate hurdlers.

That meet was just Washington's second time running the intermediate hurdles. He held the state record in the event until 1993.

Dover won the outdoor Division I team title in 1975 and 1976. Washington graduated as a member of the state record 4x200 and 4x400 relay teams. He is a member of the Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame and the Delaware Afro-American Sports Hall of Fame.

23. Danielle Bailey, Christiana, 2001

🥇 5 individual outdoor track state titles, 3 Meet of Champions wins

🏆 2-time indoor track and field state MVP, 2-time outdoor track and field state MVP

⌚ 6th all-time 100 meters (11.97), 6th 200 meters (24.28), 6th 400 meters (55.21)

In the first Meet of Champions since 1983, Bailey in 2001 won three events: the 100, 200 and 400. In the 22 MOCs since, only one girl has replicated Bailey's feat, Delcastle's Celina Emerson.

Bailey graduated with the state record in the 100 and second all-time in the 200 and 400. She missed the marks in the 200 and 400 by a combined .19 seconds. She was also part of 4x100 and 4x200 teams that at the turn of the century had the fastest times in state history.

22. John Carroll, Archmere/Tower Hill, 1981

📏 State record for high jump (6-11.25)

It wasn't until late in the spring of 1981 that senior John Carroll set his sights on Delaware's high jump state record. The 6' 3 1/2", 150-pounder never leapt over 6 feet in his first two years at Archmere, before transferring to Tower Hill and breaking out as a junior with a 6-4 jump. He crept up throughout his senior season and finished the year almost an inch beyond what any Delawarean had accomplished. It has since become the state's most enduring track and field record.

"I didn't change anything," Carroll said in June 1981. "I just became more relaxed and consequently, became much more smooth. By the end of the season, my form started to fall into place and I was performing like a machine."

21. Tisha Milligan, Seaford, 1989

📏 State record for high jump (5-8.25)

🥇 8 individual outdoor track and field state titles

🏆 2-time outdoor track and field state MVP

At the state meet her senior year, Milligan won an unusual collection of Division II titles: the high jump, 100 hurdles and shot put (she also placed second in the 200). She is the only Delaware high school girl to have cleared 5-8.

20. Cathy Kirchner, Brandywine, 1977

🥇6 individual outdoor track state titles

Kirchner won state championships and posted record-setting times in several sprint events including the 100 and 220 yards. She also held the state record in the 800 meters for two years. She became the first girl to score points in a boys cross country state meet in 1976, rising to fifth on Brandywine's team as a senior.

Prior to her high school career, Kirchner was a national caliber runner while at Springer Junior High. Sports Illustrated listed Kirchner in its "faces in the crowd" feature in 1974 when she was 14.

19. Juliana Balon, Padua, 2024

🥇 8 individual outdoor track and field state titles, 4 Meet of Champions wins

⌚ 5th all-time 100 meters (11.92), 9th 200 meters (24.47), 10th 400 meters (55.67)

📏 1st all-time long jump (20-3.25)

Entering her senior outdoor track and field season this spring, Balon will look to continue one of the state's most impressive streaks. In each of the last two years, she has won four individual events at the state meet — the 100, 200, 400 and long jump — to guide Padua to the Division I team title.

At this year's indoor state meet, Balon became the first to win the 55, 200, 400 and long jump in one day. The indoor long jump state record holder, Balon in her career won 14 state meet gold medals, the second most ever behind Delcastle's Rhondale Jones (15).

18. Ken Williams, Tower Hill, 1976

🥇 9 individual outdoor track state titles

Williams was a state meet triple winner three times across an unprecedented seven events. He likely would have won even more had athletes at the time not been limited to three entries. At one point, Williams held state records in the triple jump, high hurdles and low hurdles. After tripling in the long jump, triple jump and 180-yard low hurdles as a sophomore and junior, he switched to the 100, 200 and 110-meter high hurdles to make way for teammate Ty Roberts, who became a seven-time state champion.

17. Reggie Bright, Delcastle, 1983

⌚ T-5th all-time 200 meters (21.40*), T-9th 100 meters (10.74*)

🥇 5 individual outdoor track state titles, 5 Meet of Champions wins

One of the state's first great sprinters, Bright was the first Delawarean to win three consecutive state titles in the 100. He held at least a share of the 200 state record for 29 years. One of his more miraculous athletic displays came in his senior season when he long jumped 23-5.75, a distance that would have been a state record had a wind gauge been on hand to make it official. Bright told a reporter that he began jumping as a junior as a secondary interest. "I'd rather stick with the sprints," he said.

When the Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame inducted Bright in 2001, they noted that he was undefeated in dual meet competition.

16. Eric Cannon, Delcastle, 1985

⌚ 2nd all-time 110-meter hurdles (14.04*)

🥇 4 individual outdoor track state titles

The national champion in the 55 hurdles in 1985, Cannon is Delaware's greatest high hurdler. He won state championships in the 110 hurdles outdoors three times and held the state record for 34 years before Middletown's Brahmir Vick beat his time by four hundredths of a second in 2019.

15. Yougendy Mauricette, Sussex Tech, 2023

🥇 7 individual outdoor track and field state titles, 5 Meet of Champions wins

🏆 2-time outdoor track and field state MVP

⌚ 5th all-time 300-meter hurdles (37.60), T-6th 110-meter hurdles (14.11), T-8th 400 meters (47.96), T-14th 200 meters (21.56)

📏 6th all-time long jump (23-9)

Mauricette has perhaps the most range of any of his contemporaries. He won state championships in the hurdle events, the 200 and the long jump. No other hurdler has posted times in the top 15 on Delaware's all-time performance list in two flat sprint events.

The crowning achievement of Mauricette's high school career came at New Balance Nationals at Franklin Field in 2022. There he won the 400-meter hurdles in 51.31, the fastest time in Delaware history by more than a second. Mauricette is now in his first season at the University of Southern California.

14. Celina Emerson, Delcastle, 2010

🥇 8 individual outdoor track state titles, 6 Meet of Champions wins

⌚ 4th all-time 400 meters (54.83), 8th 200 meters (24.42)

⌚ Member of state record 4x100-meter and 4x200-meter relay teams

In Emerson's breakout senior year, she made one change that built her confidence and upped her intensity. At practice, she worked on going out harder in the first 150. When she realized she was "still alive" after repetitions in practice, there was no reason not to go out hard one time on race day.

Emerson led Delcastle to team titles indoors and outdoors and left the high school ranks as the state's top track and field performer and the state record holder in the 400, 4x100 and 4x200. The 4x100 team of Emerson, Javonna Dickerson, Kristina Viamantie and Alexis Reeves placed third at the national high school meet.

13. Alonzo Wiggins, William Penn, 1993

⌚ State record for 300-meter hurdles (37.23), T-4th all-time 110-meter hurdles (14.07)

🥇 4 individual outdoor track state titles

🏆 1993 outdoor track and field state MVP

Wiggins is Delaware's greatest intermediate hurdler. He broke Ukee Washington's 17-year-old 300 hurdles state record at the 1993 New Castle County meet. At the time, it was Delaware's longest-standing track and field record. Wiggins has since held it for 20 years. The following month he became the first Delawarean to run under 37 seconds in the event at a national meet in California. Only one runner has come within a half second of Wiggins' state record (Hodgson's Charles Wulff-Cochrane in 2012).

For his only 110 hurdles state meet title, Wiggins in 1993 ran 14.07 in a dead heat with Delcastle's Vincent Bungy. They shared the state title and continue to share the fourth spot on Delaware's all time performance list.

12. Jason Lilly, Dover, 2002

⌚ 3rd all-time 400 meters (47.44*), 9th 200 meters (21.43)

🥇 5 individual outdoor track state titles, 5 Meet of Champions wins

🏆 3-time indoor track and field state MVP, 2-time outdoor track and field state MVP

Lilly shared the 400 state record with Dickinson's Vando Davis for 11 years and is the current state record holder in the indoor 400 (48.47). He is one of only two boys since the turn of the century to win the 100, 200 and 400 at a state championship meet (Howard's Edwin Rosembert in 2017). Lilly went to Boston College to play wide receiver on a football scholarship.

11. Kamilah Salaam, Glasgow, 2003

🥇 9 individual outdoor track state titles, 4 Meet of Champions wins

⌚ 3rd all-time 100 meters (11.82), 3rd 300-meter hurdles (43.56), 4th 200 meters (24.18)

🏆 2002 outdoor track and field state MVP, 2003 indoor track and field state MVP

Salaam entered her senior outdoor track season with the lofty goal of breaking the state records in the 100, 200, 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles. Although she fell short, few has come close to equaling her dominance across those events.

When she graduated in 2003, a three-time team victor indoors, Salaam was second all-time in the 300 hurdles and the 200 (by a hundredth of a second) and, in a postseason meet, had run a 100 faster than anyone before her. The record times didn't come her senior year, but she won four events at the state meet, including the 100 and 200, for a second straight year.

10. Vando Davis, Dickinson, 1985

⌚ 2nd all-time 400 meters (47.24), T-4th 100 meters (10.64*), T-5th 200 meters (21.40*)

🥇 7 individual outdoor track state titles

🏆 1985 outdoor track and field state MVP

No matter what he accomplished, Vando Davis always aimed higher. When he ran a 46.4 split in the 4x400 at the 1985 Penn Relays, the fastest split of the day by seven tenths of a second, he said he wanted to run at least a 46, but "was really hoping more for a 45." When he completed a 100-200-400 triple at the state meet for the second time his senior season, Davis left wanting sole possession of the 200 state record. He had merely tied it. "I think I could have done it today if somebody was there to push me in the stretch," he said.

Still, he ended his high school career as fast or faster than anyone who came before him. His 400 personal best, run at a postseason meet in June 1985, was the fastest 400 time in Delaware history for 28 years. Also a star nose guard at Dickinson, Davis attended the University of Tennessee on a football scholarship.

9. Lamar Bruton, Howard, 2013

⌚ State record for 400 meters (47.02)

🏆 2013 outdoor track and field state MVP

🥇 2 Meet of Champions wins

Bruton's long glide was an unmistakable paradox, both exaggerated and effortless. The heel of his spikes would barely miss his backside as his legs spun in circles. His open knifehands would rise high into eyeview. Yet Bruton never seemed to labor or cease momentum.

From lane eight at the old Dover High School track, Bruton broke the 400 state record, the closest competitor more than two seconds behind. No one has come within a half second of the time in the 10 years since. About a month later, he ran 46.21 to place second at the high school national meet.

8. Shelley Talbert, Glasgow, 1993

🥇 7 individual outdoor track and field state titles

⌚ 1st all-time 100-meter hurdles (14.01), 7th 300-meter hurdles (43.66)

📏 T-2nd all-time high jump (5-7), 4th triple jump (39-3.25)

🏆 2-time indoor track and field state MVP, 2-time outdoor track and field state MVP

Talbert didn't run in her freshman year at Glasgow. She trained as a gymnast at a gym in Harford, Maryland and was a member of Glasgow's winter cheerleading squad.

Glasgow track coach Bob Rutkowski one day saw Talbert practicing with the cheerleaders. She did a backflip from a standing position. Rutkowski approached and told her she could become a great jumper and asked if she'd consider coming out for track.

Once Talbert followed Rutkowski to the oval, she became one of the greatest jumpers in state history and the first in a line of exceptional Glasgow sprinters. Talbert won national championships in the 100 hurdles and the triple jump and was nationally-ranked in the 300 hurdles.

"I could always jump farther than the boys and I could make them cry," Talbert told The News Journal in 1993. "They called me 'Rocket Shoes.' "

7. Maiya Dendy, Padua, 2015

⌚ 2nd all-time 100 meters (11.68), 2nd 200 meters (23.96), 2nd 400 meters (54.37)

🥇 6 individual outdoor track state titles, 6 Meet of Champions wins

🏆 2013 outdoor track and field state MVP, 2-time indoor track and field state MVP

By the end of her sophomore year, Dendy held state records in the 100, 200 and 400 and had been named the state's top athlete twice. She was the only girl in Delaware history to accomplish that feat. The challenge then became sustaining and ultimately besting her previous self. Over the next two years, Dendy battled a series of hamstring injuries but with limited training still won several state meet events. In her senior indoor season, Dendy ran the fastest time in the nation and lowered her state record in the 200 indoors.

A member of one of Delaware's most athletic families, Dendy guided Padua to seven team state championships.

6. Leshon Collins, Glasgow, 2012

⌚ State record for 100 meters (10.54), 4th all-time 200 meters (21.37)

🥇 5 individual outdoor track titles, 4 Meet of Champions wins

🏆 2012 indoor and outdoor track and field state MVP

In one of the greatest displays of his speed and swagger, Collins won the 200 at the 2012 indoor state meet by a half second even though he ran alone. Every other runner in his heat dropped out.

The Glasgow Dragon graduated with state records in the 100 and 200 and the indoor 55, and won more than any of his contemporaries. After high school, he had an accomplished career at Houston before turning pro. In 2017, he ran on a World Relays-winning 4x100 team in the Bahamas.

5. Terry Thomas, Howard, 1982

📏 State records for shot put (64-8) and discus (195-10)

🥇 6 individual outdoor track and field titles, 5 Meet of Champions wins

Thomas, 6'0", 250 pounds, entered his senior outdoor season ranked as the nation's top shot putter. He did not disappoint, setting meet records throughout the spring and resetting his own shot put and discus state records. Since the turn of the century only once has a thrower come within five feet of his shot put mark and 15 feet of his discus mark.

4. Marquis Dendy, Middletown, 2011

📏 State records for long jump (24-6.25) and triple jump (50-10.75)

⌚ 3rd all-time 100 meters (10.63)

🥇 8 individual outdoor track and field state titles, 6 Meet of Champions wins

🏆 2-time outdoor track and field state MVP

One of the greatest athletes in state history, Dendy made the technical and sometimes forgotten triple jump into a premiere event, drawing crowds, slow claps and gasps to the sand pit. Dendy twice won the Penn Relays triple jump, won indoor national championships in triple and long jump and won an outdoor national championship in triple jump. When he focused on speed his senior year, Dendy produced a 100 time a hundredth of a second off of the state record at the time.

Dendy went on to win four outdoor national titles at Florida and has competed as a professional for Nike in several national and world championship meets, including the 2020 Olympics.

3. Rhondale Jones, Delcastle, 1998

🏆 4-time indoor track and field state MVP, 2-time outdoor track and field state MVP

🥇 13 individual outdoor track state titles, 12 individual New Castle County outdoor track titles

⌚ 3rd all-time 200 meters (24.17), 4th 100-meter hurdles (14.16), 11th 400 meters (55.71)

Jones is the only sprinter in Delaware history to have won four consecutive state titles in two individual events. Her 13 individual outdoor track wins are the most all time. She is tied with Padua's Lydia Olivere for the most athlete of the year honors ever with six.

Jones held the 200 state record for 15 years with a time ran in a qualifying heat of the 1998 state championship. She ran 23.28 at a Junior Olympic meet weeks later, about four-tenths faster than Daija Lampkin's 200 state record (the time is ineligible for the state leaderboard as it occurred in a competition outside the high school season).

At Lincoln University, she won nine individual Division III NCAA titles and set the NCAA championship record in the 200.

2. Jernail Hayes, Glasgow, 2006

⌚ State records for 100-meter hurdles (14.13), 300-meter hurdles (42.31)

🥇 9 individual outdoor track state titles, 5 Meet of Champions wins

🏆 2-time outdoor track and field state MVP

On May 20, 2006, Hayes had one of the greatest state meets in Delaware history. She ran to first-place finishes in four individual events, including the 300 hurdles where she set a state record. Hayes left the Polytech track that day with 14 first-place medals in open and relay events in her career, overtaking Delcastle's Rhondale Jones for the most in Delaware history.

At Seton Hall, Hayes was a two-time All-American and set the school's 400 hurdles record. She competed professionally for Brooks from 2013 to 2017. The Delaware Track and Field Hall of Fame inducted Hayes in 2022.

1. Daija Lampkin, Middletown, 2017

⌚ State records for 100 meters (11.59), 200 meters (23.63), 400 meters (53.93)

🏆 2-time outdoor track and field state MVP, 2-time indoor track and field state MVP

🥇 7 individual outdoor track state titles

Lampkin's sprinting prowess took her places no Delawarean had gone before. The second girl in Delaware history to at once hold the 100, 200 and 400 state records outdoors, Lampkin competed in Cuba and at Oregon's prestigious Prefontaine Classic, in addition to placing as high as second at the national high school meet. Diligent often twice daily training made Lampkin a regular on the podium in Delaware since her sophomore year when she won her first of three straight state titles in the 100 and 200.

Lampkin earned multiple All-American honors at Alabama. In 2023, she concluded her track career at Central Florida.

Asterisks denote converted times as they appear on the state's all time performance list. Wins at state individual finals (contested from 1977 to 1983) are considered Meet of Champions wins for accounting purposes as both are combined Division I and Division II competitions. A Meet of Champions was not contested between 1983 and 2001. Listed times are outdoor performances unless otherwise noted.

Contact Brandon Holveck at bholveck@delawareonline.com. Follow him on X and Instagram @holveck_brandon. Follow him on TikTok @bholveck.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware track and field: 30 greatest sprinters, throwers and jumpers