LINCOLN, Neb. — In a fitting end to a stellar Big 10 rookie season, Lewiston native Isaiah Harris torched the field in the 800-meter run Sunday in the conference championship meet at the University of Nebraska to earn his first Big 10 title.
After qualifying first in the field with a 1:49.40 on the first day of competition, Harris opened up Sunday, running the distance in 1:46.21, eight-tenths of a second ahead of runner-up Daniel Kuhn of Indiana. Austin Mudd of Wisconsin was third, followed by Carter Lilly if Iowa.
Harris’ time of 1:46.21 is just .09 seconds off the Big 10 record, set four years ago by the Nittany Lions’ Casmir Loxsom.
Later Sunday, Harris also helped the Penn State 4×400-meter relay to a sixth-place Big 10 finish alongside teammates Dan Chisena, Alex Shisler and Samuel Reiser. Reiser and Chisena are freshmen, as well. In the relay, Penn State ran a 3:07.25, which bettered the team’s seed time by more than a second and a half.
Harris’ best time of the season in the 800 came on April 1, when he ran a 1:46.05. That remains the best time by a Penn State runner at that distance this season. Harris is also on the Penn State team with the best 4×800-meter time this season, with a time of 7:19.98. That event is not contested at the Big 10 Championships.
Harris and his teammates also earned a pair of wins at the recent Penn Relays, and during the indoor track season, Harris was among the top runners in the country at both 600 and 800 meters, two distances at which he also led the Nittany Lions.
A two-time New England 800-meter champion and owner of six Lewiston High School records, Harris graduated from Lewiston in 2015.
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