IMG Academy senior David Frasier put on a dominant show in the boys hurdles on Thursday evening at the East Lake Early Bird Invitational. Frasier kicked off his day winning the boys 110-meter hurdles in a current national leading and state best wind-legal time of 14.28. He rolled the fast time without competition as already came into the race seeded well ahead of the next best hurdler over 17 seconds in the final section.
Formerly of Western Branch High School in Chesapeake, Virginia, Frasier then doubled back to take victory in the 300 meter hurdles in a much more competitive race and formidable challenge by Sarasota junior Tyler Boyer, who has already gone sub 40 seconds before in the event. Boyer had the lead on Frasier coming off the final turn, but Frasier closed fastest over the last 3 hurdle sets to win with a new personal best and US top 10 time of 38.49 over Boyer in second at 39.74.
Frasier was not the only IMG athlete to take over the state and national leaderboard in an event. Middle distance runner Layla Haynes ran her first 800 meter race stateside after coming to IMG Academy from Barbados before the cross country season. A regular participant in the Carifta Games as a youth, Haynes stormed out to very hard and fast first 400 (60 seconds) and 600 meters (1:34) of the race.
There was potential for a sub 2:10 as she came off the turn, but the hot early pace slowed her down and ultimately finished still running a new personal best of 2:13.06, which is currently the top time not only in the state of Florida but the country very early in this 2022 outdoor season. Certainly saw on Thursday that she is capable of sub 2:10 at some point this season.
IMG Academy won both the boys and girls team competition on the day by significant margins as they had several more individual winners including Anika Thomas in the girls 100 meter dash at 12.19, Columba Effiong in the girls 200 meter dash at 24.38, Ginger Arnold in the girls javelin at 36.85m, Kosi Umerah in the girls shot put at 11.42m, and Olivia Albee in the girls pole vault at 3.35m among the other exceptional winning performances.