Dillard’s Christiana Coleman is Broward Girls’ Track and Field Athlete of the Year
Dillard’s Christiana Coleman piled up the hardware in her final high school season.
After winning both an individual and team cross-country state title in the fall, the senior won a pair of individual state track titles and was part of a state-record relay team that led Dillard to a Class 3A state title, beating a Northwestern team that had won 14 consecutive team state titles.
That’s why Coleman is the Miami Herald’s Broward Girls’ Track and Field Athlete of the Year.
Coleman’s performance at state this season was one to remember.
Coleman won a pair of individual titles in the 1,600-meter run and 3,200-meter run in convincing fashion. Her time of 4:53.58 in the 1,600 was nearly a second faster than the state runner-up, while her time of 10:50.88 in the 3,200 cleared the Class 3A field by nearly five seconds.
She also led off Dillard’s 3,200 relay that set the state record with a time of 8:49.73 — a half-second shy of the national record. It was the third consecutive season in which Dillard won that relay, with Coleman leading off each time.
It followed up a stellar finish to her high school cross-country career in the fall when she won the Class 3A race with a time of 17:53.4. — the only runner from Broward or Miami-Dade and one of just three runners overall to crack the 18-minute mark at state.
It was the latest — and final — dominant effort from one of Broward County’s most consistently top runners. She jumped onto the scene immediately as a seventh grader when she finished in 16th place in 2018. After that, she finished no worse than sixth place at state over the next five years.
But while Coleman’s high school career has come to an end, her track career has not. She will compete collegiately at the University of Florida.
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