Ashley Higginson may find her name inscribed on the Penn Relays Wall of Fame some day.
The former Colts Neck High School and Princeton University great, who now runs professionally for Saucony and the New Jersey/New York Track Club, is making a pretty strong case for herself.
Higginson won the Penn Relays Invitational Women’s 1-Mile Run in a national-leading 4:33.90 at Franklin Field April 30. With that win, Higginson has now won Penn Relays titles as a high school, college and professional runner — a hat trick few have accomplished.
The ex-Cougars standout, who has a law degree, is one of only four girls in the 122-year history of the Penn Relays to win the high school 3,000-meters in back-to-back years. At Princeton, she won the college 5,000 meters and this year added the professional 1-mile run victory to her impressive Penn Relays résumé.
What mattered most to Higginson, though, is that her win in the mile run was another positive step toward her only goal of 2016: making the U.S. Olympic Team in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Since graduating from Princeton and turning pro, Higginson has become one of the best barrier runners in the country and a 2016 Olympic hopeful. She’s twice been a runner-up at the national championships and ranked fourth in the country last year. In 2013, she made the U.S. National Team that competed at the World Championships in Moscow, Russia, and last summer, she won the Pan-Am Games gold medal, setting a new meet record in the steeplechase.
The U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials are set for July 1-10 in Eugene, Oregon. A top-three finish there would put Higginson on the U.S. Olympic Team headed to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the Summer Games.
Higginson isn’t the only Freehold area track and field athlete who has Olympic ambitions.
Manalapan graduate Robby Andrews made the U.S. team for the 1,500 meters at last year’s World Championships in Beijing, China, and this winter’s World Indoor Championships, where he placed fourth. He was ranked No. 2 in the country for the metric mile in 2015 and this winter, he lowered his mile run personal best to 3:53.16. Andrews, who runs professionally for Adidas, has established himself as a favorite to the make the Olympic team at the 1,500. His 1,500 personal best is 3:34.76.
Craig Forys, a classmate of Higginson’s at Colts Neck, was starring for the Cougars’ boys at the same time she was for the girls. Forys is now one of the top male steeplechasers. He finished fifth at the recent Jordan Invitational at Stanford University, clocking 8:28.723. However, he was No. 2 among the American steeplechasers. Forys, who runs for Asics and Furman Elite, keeps running faster each year. Indoors, the ex-Cougar ran his first sub-4:00 mile, joining Andrews as the only two runners from the area to achieve that milestone.
Former Freehold High School champion Justin Frick is a hopeful in the men’s high jump. He is competing for the Shore Athletic Club.