Jump to Signee: Josephine Anokye | Ma'Kayla Dickerson | Sevanna Hanson | Lena Lebrun | Vinny Mauri | Antonio Mitchell | Jeminise Parris | Kentre Patterson | Caitlin Rose | Conant Smith | Christina Warren | Arius Williams
TEMPE – Coming right on the heels of one of Arizona's State's deepest recruiting classes of the decade that saw the men's and women's classes both ranked No. 7 in the nation by Track and Field News, director of track and field Greg Kraft and his talented staff have doubled down on the commitment to excellence by adding 12 top high school athletes and transfers for 2019.
"The first wave of recruiting has ended and we're quite pleased with what we were able to do," Kraft said. "When you look at our signing class, I think you can get a common theme there and that's that we really needed to address some of our shortcomings on the track."
Each of the added 12 athletes have primary or secondary events on the track, including the reigning Arizona Division 1 pole vault champion Sevanna Hanson.
While the Desert Vista senior is the top female pole vaulter in the state, she has gotten it done on the track as well, finishing ninth at the state meet in the 100-meter hurdles in 2018.
"We are very excited about Sevanna joining the Sun Devil vault family," ASU pole vault coach Ron Barela said. "Sevanna's impact is huge because she will be able to continue the great success and tradition in the vault program at ASU."
ASU has been the destination for some of the state's top vaulters as four of the top-five highest flyers in boys' history have called ASU home including state record-holder and current Sun Devil Cole Riddle, as well as Olympic champion and ASU record-holder Nick Hysong. On the girls' side, both Shaylah Simpson and April Kubishta have made stops in Tempe after jumping into the state's record books.
While Hanson hasn't claimed a state record just yet, there is one incoming Devil who already has one to her name in Ma'Kayla Dickerson.
"Ma'Kayla is one of the top recruits in the state and in the country," associate head coach Dion Miller said. "We're investing in our future in the hurdles and we expect her to be successful on the track for a long time."
Success would just be more of the same for the Fairfax senior who owns the state record in the 300-meter hurdles and picked up four medals at the state meet in 2018, including the 300 hurdles and high jump crowns.
Perhaps the most versatile athlete in this year's class, Dickerson took second in the 200-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles at the championships, and won her only heptathlon of the season with 4,573 points, nearly 650 points better than the runner-up.
"Ma'Kayla has been focused on basketball, but we feel that she is the best athlete in the state," Kraft said. "Her times in both hurdles, her personal best in the high jump and the heptathlon prove how dynamic she is, and we think she's only going to get better."
Assistant sprints coach Javonie Small competed in the hurdles in college and Miller has coached a handful of elite hurdlers including a world champion.
"When you look at what coaches Miller and Small were able to do with the sprints class, I think they did an excellent job of recruiting to what our needs are and recruiting to what our strengths are," Kraft said.
Miller's group picked up a rare talent in Kentre Patterson who will join the Devils in the spring of 2019 and brings an impressive resume with him.
"Kentre is going to bring instant experience when it comes to competing at the NCAA level," Miller said. "For me, Kentre will be one of the better male hurdlers we've had at Arizona State in quite some time."
Patterson was a high school 110-and 300-meter hurdles champion in the state of Michigan back in 2017 before he committed to play football at the collegiate level.
"Kentre is a special talent," Kraft said. "He only spent six weeks on the track during the indoor season, but still qualified for the NCAA Championships in the high hurdles."
Patterson finished second at the Missouri Valley Championships in the 60-meter hurdles and earned a second-team All-America nod when he finished 15th at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
His football commitment meant he could not compete in the outdoor season, so Patterson will join the Maroon and Gold as a redshirt freshman in January.
California's Antonio Mitchell has taken a similar path to Tempe as the former California state runner-up in the 100-meter dash and third-place finisher in the 200-meter dash went on to play football at the junior college level, but still was a force on the track.
"With his PRs in the 100 and 200, he's going to be a guy who gives us depth in the short sprints," Kraft said. "He'll be joining us in the fall, but much like Kentre, they'll be able to focus on track and the sky is the limit for them."
Following this season's crop of transfers that includes NCAA All-American Steven Champlin and junior college All-American Marcus Reaves, the addition of Patterson and Mitchell is a solid start to the second class of men's transfers under Miller.
Continuing the theme of successful hurdlers, ASU grabbed one of the best in the junior college ranks from Central Arizona in Jeminise Parris, and also picked up her All-American teammate Josephine Anokye.
"One of the things I like about bringing in junior college transfers is that they have some experience already, and in both Josephine's and Jeminise's case, they have success at the collegiate level as well," Miller said. "We're expecting some great things out of them individually, and we think that they'll be a big addition to the relays."
In her two years in Coolidge, Parris advanced to two NJCAA finals in the 100-meter hurdles and won the title in the event at the first time of asking. Although she didn't finish in the 2018 final, she went into the Championships with the sixth-fastest time in the country and helped CAC finish fourth in the 4x400-meter relay.
Parris, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, was just one-hundredth of a second shy of winning her country's national title this past summer in the hurdles.
As for Anokye, the versatile Ghanaian sprinter has been advanced to the NJCAA Championships in the 200-meter dash in each season at Central Arizona, taking second in the event twice.
Her first runner-up finish came in 2017 when she did it outdoors. She followed that up immediately by taking second at the indoor championships the next season.
Anokye has also scored in the 100-meter dash and been a key member of the CAC relay teams at 100 and 400 meters, something she will be expected to do again with Parris in Tempe this coming spring.
"When you look at some of the shortcomings we had on the track last year, I think with these junior college transfers coming in, they have a chance to make an instant impact on this team," Kraft said.
ASU has a rich history in the 400-meter dash and Texas standout Arius Williams will look to add to that tradition as she dons the pitchfork next year.
"When you can run 53 seconds in the 400 in high school, you're going to make an impact," Miller said. "To me, and across the country, she's recognized as one of the top-recruits in the class, so to get her out of the state of Texas is big for us and we're excited to have her."
Williams made a name for herself in the Lone Star State as a dynamic talent with range from the 100 to the 800. She was just recently recognized by MileSplit as the No. 50 recruit in the nation going into her senior season.
She anchored the DeSoto girls' 4x400-meter team to a second-place finish at the Texas Class 6A Championships, and ran the third leg on the 4x200 title-winning quartet. Although she only ran the 800 once as a junior, her time was good enough for 20th in the state in her grade. In her main events, she clocked the 10th-best 400 time and 11th-fastest 200-meter time among all girls in the state of Texas.
"She's one of the big prizes for us in this period," Kraft said. "She's one of the top-rated 400-meter runners in the country and we really needed to bring in a long sprinter. She has the ability to go down to the shorter sprints, too, so she's bringing in a different kind of range that is crucial in any program."
The Sun Devils already had one Pennsylvania sprinting champion on their roster in state record-holder Austin Kratz, but ASU landed another one of the Keystone State's best in dual-threat Christina Warren.
"Christina is the best athlete out of the state of Pennsylvania in my opinion," Miller said. "I think she's going to be important for us and her resume shows that she is a great dual athlete in both of the jumps and the sprint-hurdles."
For Warren's dominance in the triple jump, MileSplit Pennsylvania named her the top returning athlete in the event for 2019. She has won back-to-back state titles in the event and her winning mark last season was more than a foot farther than the runner-up.
Her accomplishments don't end on the runway however, as Warren also took home the 100-meter hurdles crown in 2018 following a fourth-place finish in the event in 2017.
As one of the most-decorated female athletes in the state and in the nation, Warren has been labeled as the No. 25 recruit in the country by MileSplit.
"She's one of the top-rated hurdlers and triple jumpers in the nation, so that's huge for this class and this program," Kraft said. "You kind of expect her to have an immediate impact on this team when she gets here in the fall, and hopefully she can make an impact on the national stage as well."
Moving into the longer distances, coaches Cory Leslie and Jeremy Rasmussen also added talent to their respective squads with each coach adding a pair of standouts to the roster.
Leslie went into his home state of Ohio and signed two of the Buckeye State's best in Conant Smith and Vinny Mauri.
"We're bringing in two guys who have had success at the national level in cross country and have transitioned that into great results on the track as well," Leslie said. "They both have the ability to come in and help this program on day one and I'm looking forward to adding them to the mix."
Although they represent opposite ends of the great state of Ohio, the two incoming Sun Devils are familiar with one another thanks to their status as some of the state's distance elites.
Smith recently bested Mauri at the Ohio State cross country championships as he took the title and Mauri placed fourth, but Mauri clocked the fastest 5K time in the state this season before heading to the Nike Cross Country Nationals where he finished 29th.
Mauri was a runner-up in the 3,200-meter final as a junior behind now Syracuse freshman Matthew Scrape.
"Vinny kind of burst onto the scene at the state track meet this past year when he ran a huge PR," Leslie said. "He followed it up with a great cross country season this fall where he really made a name for himself and put himself near the front of the NXN meet."
As a junior, Smith was just four-tenths of a second off winning the state title in cross country, defeating the aforementioned Scrape and coming up just shy of current Indiana frosh Dustin Horter.
That same season, Smith finished eighth at the Nike Cross Country Nationals and would go on to take the same place in the 3,200-meter final that Mauri took second in back in May.
"Conant has been top-10 at the national meet in cross country and has shown great range in a number of events on the track," Leslie said. "Looking at the guys that he's beaten or run with and where they are now at the collegiate level, he's someone who can help us as one of those top guys off the bat."
As a junior, Grand Blanc's Caitlin Rose advanced to the Michigan state championships in two events, including the 800-and 1,600-meter runs.
"Caitlin comes from a state where we've actually had a lot of ASU alums come from, so it's exciting to get that pipeline started again," Rasmussen said. "She's an individual who is extremely competitive, has a lot of drive and is goal oriented. Her ability to back up what she wants to do is something that's refreshing to see."
Rose ran her fastest times of the season when it mattered most last spring, running a personal best in the 1,600-meter state final to take sixth overall, and clocking a PR in the 800 to qualify for the championship. At the New Balance Outdoor Nationals, Rose finished sixth in the mile, once again in a personal-best time.
"I think she has a really big upside and I'm looking forward to seeing how she can develop in a collegiate program by training with our team on a daily basis," Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen's other addition to the roster is French international Lena Lebrun.
From the 800 to the 2,000-meter steeplechase, Lebrun has competed with some of the best in her age group across the world, taking the 2018 European U18 title in the steeple and going on to finish fourth in the same event at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires a few weeks later.
While she won the Youth Olympics crown in the steeple, Lebrun had no problem dropping down to the 1,500 where she led all U18 women in France during the 2018 outdoor season.
"Lena is a tremendous talent and she loves to challenge herself," Rasmussen said. "I think for her to come to states and find a place where she felt comfortable was very important for her and I'm glad she found that in her future teammates and this coaching staff. To have somebody come in at the pedigree that she's performed at in her young career is something that's huge for this program."
Lebrun's final year before jumping across the Atlantic will be her first competing in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, an event that Rasmussen won a Pac-10 title in when he was an ASU athlete, and one that Sun Devil sophomore Jackson Lewis claimed a U.S. Junior title in this summer.
"She can compete in a variety of events, but her ability in the steeplechase is something that will be big for the program," Kraft said. "With coach Rasmussen's background in the event, I think she will be an important piece to reestablishing our team in the steeple."
The Sun Devil signing class of 2019 will all be on campus for the 2019 cross country and 2020 track and field seasons, but Patterson, Parris and Anokye will join the squad this coming January for the 2019 indoor and outdoor campaigns.
To keep up with the incoming Sun Devils and the upcoming track and field season, follow @SunDevilTFXC on Twitter and Instagram, and visit thesundevils.com for news and updates.
TEMPE – Coming right on the heels of one of Arizona's State's deepest recruiting classes of the decade that saw the men's and women's classes both ranked No. 7 in the nation by Track and Field News, director of track and field Greg Kraft and his talented staff have doubled down on the commitment to excellence by adding 12 top high school athletes and transfers for 2019.
"The first wave of recruiting has ended and we're quite pleased with what we were able to do," Kraft said. "When you look at our signing class, I think you can get a common theme there and that's that we really needed to address some of our shortcomings on the track."
Each of the added 12 athletes have primary or secondary events on the track, including the reigning Arizona Division 1 pole vault champion Sevanna Hanson.
While the Desert Vista senior is the top female pole vaulter in the state, she has gotten it done on the track as well, finishing ninth at the state meet in the 100-meter hurdles in 2018.
"We are very excited about Sevanna joining the Sun Devil vault family," ASU pole vault coach Ron Barela said. "Sevanna's impact is huge because she will be able to continue the great success and tradition in the vault program at ASU."
ASU has been the destination for some of the state's top vaulters as four of the top-five highest flyers in boys' history have called ASU home including state record-holder and current Sun Devil Cole Riddle, as well as Olympic champion and ASU record-holder Nick Hysong. On the girls' side, both Shaylah Simpson and April Kubishta have made stops in Tempe after jumping into the state's record books.
While Hanson hasn't claimed a state record just yet, there is one incoming Devil who already has one to her name in Ma'Kayla Dickerson.
"Ma'Kayla is one of the top recruits in the state and in the country," associate head coach Dion Miller said. "We're investing in our future in the hurdles and we expect her to be successful on the track for a long time."
Success would just be more of the same for the Fairfax senior who owns the state record in the 300-meter hurdles and picked up four medals at the state meet in 2018, including the 300 hurdles and high jump crowns.
Perhaps the most versatile athlete in this year's class, Dickerson took second in the 200-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles at the championships, and won her only heptathlon of the season with 4,573 points, nearly 650 points better than the runner-up.
"Ma'Kayla has been focused on basketball, but we feel that she is the best athlete in the state," Kraft said. "Her times in both hurdles, her personal best in the high jump and the heptathlon prove how dynamic she is, and we think she's only going to get better."
Assistant sprints coach Javonie Small competed in the hurdles in college and Miller has coached a handful of elite hurdlers including a world champion.
"When you look at what coaches Miller and Small were able to do with the sprints class, I think they did an excellent job of recruiting to what our needs are and recruiting to what our strengths are," Kraft said.
Miller's group picked up a rare talent in Kentre Patterson who will join the Devils in the spring of 2019 and brings an impressive resume with him.
"Kentre is going to bring instant experience when it comes to competing at the NCAA level," Miller said. "For me, Kentre will be one of the better male hurdlers we've had at Arizona State in quite some time."
Patterson was a high school 110-and 300-meter hurdles champion in the state of Michigan back in 2017 before he committed to play football at the collegiate level.
"Kentre is a special talent," Kraft said. "He only spent six weeks on the track during the indoor season, but still qualified for the NCAA Championships in the high hurdles."
Patterson finished second at the Missouri Valley Championships in the 60-meter hurdles and earned a second-team All-America nod when he finished 15th at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
His football commitment meant he could not compete in the outdoor season, so Patterson will join the Maroon and Gold as a redshirt freshman in January.
California's Antonio Mitchell has taken a similar path to Tempe as the former California state runner-up in the 100-meter dash and third-place finisher in the 200-meter dash went on to play football at the junior college level, but still was a force on the track.
"With his PRs in the 100 and 200, he's going to be a guy who gives us depth in the short sprints," Kraft said. "He'll be joining us in the fall, but much like Kentre, they'll be able to focus on track and the sky is the limit for them."
Following this season's crop of transfers that includes NCAA All-American Steven Champlin and junior college All-American Marcus Reaves, the addition of Patterson and Mitchell is a solid start to the second class of men's transfers under Miller.
Continuing the theme of successful hurdlers, ASU grabbed one of the best in the junior college ranks from Central Arizona in Jeminise Parris, and also picked up her All-American teammate Josephine Anokye.
"One of the things I like about bringing in junior college transfers is that they have some experience already, and in both Josephine's and Jeminise's case, they have success at the collegiate level as well," Miller said. "We're expecting some great things out of them individually, and we think that they'll be a big addition to the relays."
In her two years in Coolidge, Parris advanced to two NJCAA finals in the 100-meter hurdles and won the title in the event at the first time of asking. Although she didn't finish in the 2018 final, she went into the Championships with the sixth-fastest time in the country and helped CAC finish fourth in the 4x400-meter relay.
Parris, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, was just one-hundredth of a second shy of winning her country's national title this past summer in the hurdles.
As for Anokye, the versatile Ghanaian sprinter has been advanced to the NJCAA Championships in the 200-meter dash in each season at Central Arizona, taking second in the event twice.
Her first runner-up finish came in 2017 when she did it outdoors. She followed that up immediately by taking second at the indoor championships the next season.
Anokye has also scored in the 100-meter dash and been a key member of the CAC relay teams at 100 and 400 meters, something she will be expected to do again with Parris in Tempe this coming spring.
"When you look at some of the shortcomings we had on the track last year, I think with these junior college transfers coming in, they have a chance to make an instant impact on this team," Kraft said.
ASU has a rich history in the 400-meter dash and Texas standout Arius Williams will look to add to that tradition as she dons the pitchfork next year.
"When you can run 53 seconds in the 400 in high school, you're going to make an impact," Miller said. "To me, and across the country, she's recognized as one of the top-recruits in the class, so to get her out of the state of Texas is big for us and we're excited to have her."
Williams made a name for herself in the Lone Star State as a dynamic talent with range from the 100 to the 800. She was just recently recognized by MileSplit as the No. 50 recruit in the nation going into her senior season.
She anchored the DeSoto girls' 4x400-meter team to a second-place finish at the Texas Class 6A Championships, and ran the third leg on the 4x200 title-winning quartet. Although she only ran the 800 once as a junior, her time was good enough for 20th in the state in her grade. In her main events, she clocked the 10th-best 400 time and 11th-fastest 200-meter time among all girls in the state of Texas.
"She's one of the big prizes for us in this period," Kraft said. "She's one of the top-rated 400-meter runners in the country and we really needed to bring in a long sprinter. She has the ability to go down to the shorter sprints, too, so she's bringing in a different kind of range that is crucial in any program."
The Sun Devils already had one Pennsylvania sprinting champion on their roster in state record-holder Austin Kratz, but ASU landed another one of the Keystone State's best in dual-threat Christina Warren.
"Christina is the best athlete out of the state of Pennsylvania in my opinion," Miller said. "I think she's going to be important for us and her resume shows that she is a great dual athlete in both of the jumps and the sprint-hurdles."
For Warren's dominance in the triple jump, MileSplit Pennsylvania named her the top returning athlete in the event for 2019. She has won back-to-back state titles in the event and her winning mark last season was more than a foot farther than the runner-up.
Her accomplishments don't end on the runway however, as Warren also took home the 100-meter hurdles crown in 2018 following a fourth-place finish in the event in 2017.
As one of the most-decorated female athletes in the state and in the nation, Warren has been labeled as the No. 25 recruit in the country by MileSplit.
"She's one of the top-rated hurdlers and triple jumpers in the nation, so that's huge for this class and this program," Kraft said. "You kind of expect her to have an immediate impact on this team when she gets here in the fall, and hopefully she can make an impact on the national stage as well."
Moving into the longer distances, coaches Cory Leslie and Jeremy Rasmussen also added talent to their respective squads with each coach adding a pair of standouts to the roster.
Leslie went into his home state of Ohio and signed two of the Buckeye State's best in Conant Smith and Vinny Mauri.
"We're bringing in two guys who have had success at the national level in cross country and have transitioned that into great results on the track as well," Leslie said. "They both have the ability to come in and help this program on day one and I'm looking forward to adding them to the mix."
Although they represent opposite ends of the great state of Ohio, the two incoming Sun Devils are familiar with one another thanks to their status as some of the state's distance elites.
Smith recently bested Mauri at the Ohio State cross country championships as he took the title and Mauri placed fourth, but Mauri clocked the fastest 5K time in the state this season before heading to the Nike Cross Country Nationals where he finished 29th.
Mauri was a runner-up in the 3,200-meter final as a junior behind now Syracuse freshman Matthew Scrape.
"Vinny kind of burst onto the scene at the state track meet this past year when he ran a huge PR," Leslie said. "He followed it up with a great cross country season this fall where he really made a name for himself and put himself near the front of the NXN meet."
As a junior, Smith was just four-tenths of a second off winning the state title in cross country, defeating the aforementioned Scrape and coming up just shy of current Indiana frosh Dustin Horter.
That same season, Smith finished eighth at the Nike Cross Country Nationals and would go on to take the same place in the 3,200-meter final that Mauri took second in back in May.
"Conant has been top-10 at the national meet in cross country and has shown great range in a number of events on the track," Leslie said. "Looking at the guys that he's beaten or run with and where they are now at the collegiate level, he's someone who can help us as one of those top guys off the bat."
As a junior, Grand Blanc's Caitlin Rose advanced to the Michigan state championships in two events, including the 800-and 1,600-meter runs.
"Caitlin comes from a state where we've actually had a lot of ASU alums come from, so it's exciting to get that pipeline started again," Rasmussen said. "She's an individual who is extremely competitive, has a lot of drive and is goal oriented. Her ability to back up what she wants to do is something that's refreshing to see."
Rose ran her fastest times of the season when it mattered most last spring, running a personal best in the 1,600-meter state final to take sixth overall, and clocking a PR in the 800 to qualify for the championship. At the New Balance Outdoor Nationals, Rose finished sixth in the mile, once again in a personal-best time.
"I think she has a really big upside and I'm looking forward to seeing how she can develop in a collegiate program by training with our team on a daily basis," Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen's other addition to the roster is French international Lena Lebrun.
From the 800 to the 2,000-meter steeplechase, Lebrun has competed with some of the best in her age group across the world, taking the 2018 European U18 title in the steeple and going on to finish fourth in the same event at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires a few weeks later.
While she won the Youth Olympics crown in the steeple, Lebrun had no problem dropping down to the 1,500 where she led all U18 women in France during the 2018 outdoor season.
"Lena is a tremendous talent and she loves to challenge herself," Rasmussen said. "I think for her to come to states and find a place where she felt comfortable was very important for her and I'm glad she found that in her future teammates and this coaching staff. To have somebody come in at the pedigree that she's performed at in her young career is something that's huge for this program."
Lebrun's final year before jumping across the Atlantic will be her first competing in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, an event that Rasmussen won a Pac-10 title in when he was an ASU athlete, and one that Sun Devil sophomore Jackson Lewis claimed a U.S. Junior title in this summer.
"She can compete in a variety of events, but her ability in the steeplechase is something that will be big for the program," Kraft said. "With coach Rasmussen's background in the event, I think she will be an important piece to reestablishing our team in the steeple."
The Sun Devil signing class of 2019 will all be on campus for the 2019 cross country and 2020 track and field seasons, but Patterson, Parris and Anokye will join the squad this coming January for the 2019 indoor and outdoor campaigns.
To keep up with the incoming Sun Devils and the upcoming track and field season, follow @SunDevilTFXC on Twitter and Instagram, and visit thesundevils.com for news and updates.
?? Check out the newest members of the #SunDevilFamily!#ForksUp??https://t.co/PoKUtNGzhM
— Sun Devil TFXC (@SunDevilTFXC) December 7, 2018