After its runaway victory in the Gr. IV relay championships on Jan. 13, Southern Ocean Regional High School, and its star runner, Danielle Tauro, seem in a position to sweep the board individually and collectively for the 2006-07 indoor and outdoor track and field campaigns.

Tauro and her sophomore sidekick, Jillian Smith, completed a stunning week of competition when they finished first and third in the invitational mile last Saturday at the New Balance Games at the New York Armory Center. Tauro, in control of the race from start to finish, won by 20 yards from Chanelle Price in 4:46.13, second best in New Jersey history, while Smith ran 4:55.27 in third. Both will be running in the Millrose Games mile on Feb. 2 at Madison Square Garden; Tauro will also be in the field this weekend at Reggie Lewis Center in Boston.

It was a typical Tauro race as she sailed through three 73-second 440s, then took off in the final 200 meters to complete a final quarter-mile in a little over 66 seconds. This came after she had anchored three winning teams in the state relay victory, the last two within 30 minutes of each other. Her anchor leg in an 11:59.20 DMR victory over Colts Neck was 4:53. Smith ran a 3:38 leadoff 1200 in this one and contributed two sub-60 second 400 legs in the sprint medley and 1600R, allowing Tauro to coast on her anchor legs.

With these two likely to produce close to or over 50 individual points, Southern Ocean will be a prohibitive favorite in the state Gr. IV championships three weeks hence. And it will not be much different outdoors with Ashley Furlong ready to weigh in with solid points in the 400H and PV and a crack 1600R team that ran under 4:00 last spring.

New Jersey’s other national leader, Devon Bond of Trenton, also had quite a week, starting with his 7-0 HJ that ended the state relay marathon on Jan. 14 at the Jersey City Armory. He followed this with a 6-8 clearance, as Trenton and West Orange repeated their 13-0 totals at the New Balance Games, and a 48-4 to spark a triple jump victory.

The state relays went off with only a few hitches in their return to the Jersey City drillshed after a 33-year absence. There were several very close team races with three of the four boys events decided in the closing 1600R. Roselle took Gr. I, Rahway defeated neighbor Union Catholic in Gr. II, Notre Dame edged Willingboro in Gr. III and Trenton coasted in Gr. IV despite a fall in the opening shuttle hurdles.

Southern was joined as any easy winner in the girls’ meet by Pope John which, as expected, totally dominated the Gr. I division, and by Hopewell Valley which won its sixth in a row in Gr. II. But Gr. III had another close one, this one left undecided as Ridge and Kingsway tied at 32. (It is likely to be different in the open meet in three weeks with all-arounder Josfine Kvist and distance runner Nicol Traynor leading Ridge to a decisive win.

The Gr. IV distance medley duel between Southern Ocean and Colts Neck was easily the feature of the three-day meet. Smith’s sterling opening leg gave Southern Ocean a big lead, but Colts Neck pecked away at it in the intermediate legs and Ashley Higginson quickly moved up to Tauro on the anchor. She actually went by her close friend at the halfway point, but the result was inevitable as Danielle sailed way on the final lap, winning by a dozen yards as Colts Neck clocked 12:01.76.

This is a banner year for New Jersey in the girls’ DMR, as was evident when Ramapo took the Gr. III race from Roxbury in 12:21.61, a time it improved to 12:09.58, finishing fourth the following week in a stacked field at the Yale Invitational.

The sprint medley also had quite a weekend with Colts Neck running 4:12.9 in the girls’ race at the Lavino relays on Lawrenceville’s banked 200-meter track and Pope John topping that with a 4:10.70 at the New Balance meet. Notre Dame’s boys, who had laid off the event in the state relays in favor of the immediately following 1600R, put it all together at the Lavino Relays, running 3:31.8, while Pleasantville was winning in the New Balance meet at 3:33.99. The Colts Neck girls also won the 3200R in 9:35.9 and the DMR in 12:42.7.

The New Balance meet was a good one all around for the New Jersey entry. Kyle Soloff of Morris Hills earned a berth in the Millrose boys’ mile, finishing third in 4:19.41.

Camden, the national leader in the 800R, skipped the New Balance meet, but Willingboro had a second-place finish in 1:30.63. Christian Brothers finished just ahead of Jackson in third place in the 3200R at 8:04.68 and had a B team run 8:14.29, while the Jaguars lowered their season’s best to 8:06.27. Trenton was second to Archbishop Molloy in the SHR in 30.67. Hillsboro topped the Trenton mark with a 30.3 at the Lavino Relays and also won the SHR at 34.7.

The Camden girls were present and ran second in the 800R in 1:42.64 and fourth in the 1600R in 3:59.54. Hunterdon central won the SHR in 35.72 in a 1-2-3-4 NJ finish. Columbia’s pair of Bianca Stewart and Ashley Newby repeated their state relay win at 10-8, each clearing 5-4 and West Orange won the shot put relay with Althea Charles hitting 41-4 ½.

Charles’ mark, her second excursion into the 40-plus ranks, was, however, dwarfed by the 47-2 from Brick junior Deanna Hahn at the state relays. Hahn, who transferred from Lakewood last fall, is now eyeing the somewhat controversial marks set by Nicole Sims of Plainfield back in 1992.

Some New Jersey athletes skipped the state relays to run at the Stanner Games in New York Jan. 13. There was a 2-3-4 finish in the boys 600M with Pat Blackie of Seton Hall leading home Alan Laws of Pleasantville and Jason Apwah of Rahway in 1:21.38. Pleasantville showed how easily it might have won the Gr. II title as it ran 1:32.34 in the 800R and 31.93 in the SHR to go along with earlier marks of 3:27.81 in the 1600R and 8:04.31 in the 3200R

In girls’ action at this one, Racquell Vassell of East Orange won the 55H in 8.34 and finished third in the 300 in 39.44. Natalie Parkes of Hunterdon Central took the PV at 11-3.

National outdoor 400H champ Leslie Njoku of McNair Academic, had a 5-4 in the HJ at the state relays and another in the Jersey City Public School meet on Jan. 23 where she also won the 55H in 8.7 and the 400 in an eased-up 1:01.2, but skipped the 600 at the Stanner Games when her leg tightened up after the state relay effort.

Solo runner Andrew Hanko of Trinity Christian was also absent at the relays, but won the 3K at Yale in 8:40.27, roughly equivalent to what his Parochial 3200 rival ran recently for 2M – 9:15.2 at a New York Armory open meet.