RESULTS

Future Oregon Duck Drew Hunter further cemented himself as one of the all-time great U.S. preps on Saturday at the Camel City Invitational in Winston-Salem, as the senior’s 7:59.33 3k is the fastest ever by an American high schooler indoor or outdoor.

Both Lukas Verzbicas (8:29.46) and German Fernandez (8:34.40) have outdoor two-mile times that convert to faster 3k marks, but when you consider that Hunter ran his time indoors on a flat track, his run is arguably more impressive.  

The 2015 Foot Locker champion was chasing the 8:05.46 mark set by Edward Cheserek en route to his 2-mile indoor high school record of 8:39.15 back in 2013, and Hunter came away with so much more, as he bettered German Fernandez’s 7:59.83 all-time record.

Hunter, who really started to catch fire last indoor season when he won the New Balance Nationals Indoor 2-mile in 8:48.22, ran a perfect race today, hanging back from the lead pack which included studs Garrett Heath and Lawi Lalang, and most importantly, running even splits throughout. 

Heath ended up winning the race with a big last 300m carrying him to a 7:48.48. Lalang was second in 7:50.07.

Hunter split a blistering 4:14.64 through the opening 1600m as he chased the leaders, and by then it was pretty clear that 8:05 was going to go down. With that secure, sub-8:00 became the new target, but Hunter was in danger of just missing it as his 33.57 penultimate lap put him at 7:29.9 with one to go.  

A 29.3 last lap later, and Hunter became the fastest prep in American history, even more impressive considering that he ran it on a  flat 200m track. Using the NCAA's flat track conversion, the time would be chopped down to 7:53.82. 

Now the prospects of Hunter becoming the second U.S. high school athlete to break 4:00 in the indoor mile (American record holder Alan Webb is only one to do it) next week at the Armory seem very good, as today’s run indicates that this season will be loaded with records for the Loudoun Valley (VA) senior.