BY ELLIOTT DENMAN

If you’re a track and field purist – a category descriptive of many at the 25^th-anniversary edition of The New Balance Games – you had to admire the talent, the enthusiasm and potential of Derby (Connecticut) High School senior Ja ‘Kwan Hale.

  He brought it all to The Armory Track and Field Center on Saturday – and as a result brought added recognition back to the Naugatuck Valley and the New Haven suburbs.      

  Best of all, he did it smiling every step of the way – the happy champion his sport always needs.

  Even with a decisive lead over top rival Napoleon Hernandez of Tatnall (Delaware) heading around the final turn of the Invitational 500-Meter Run, Kwan gutted it out to the finish line, toppling over the line in his final stride,

determined to hold off all challengers.

   He crossed the line a clearcut winner in 1:05.52, as Hernandez finished second in 1:06.29.

  Fortunately, the finish-line tumble produced no after-effects, as Hale returned to

outclass all of his high jump rivals as well, clinching the win with a 6-6

clearance, and taking three cracks at equaling the meet record of 6-10.

  “ I love competing at The Armory,” said Hale. “The fans are great. There’s always tremendous atmosphere. It brings out my best.

  “We’re a small school,” said Derby coach Nicholas DiLuggo.  “We don’t have a track, so we just train in the  parking lot, in gymnasiums, anywhere we can run in  a circle. His (Hale’s) potential can go through the roof. He’s amazing. Whoever gets him in college will be very lucky. He’s already cleared

6-11 in practice. He should go 48 indoors, 46 outdoors in the 400. He’s a great hurdler, too.  Maybe we’ll see him in the decathlon someday.”

  Three more milers joined the field for the NYRR Millrose Games at The Armory on Feb. 9.

 Alex Rizzo’s storming 29.8 final lap for Bronxville carried him past Tobias Wolfson of Riverdale Country Day and on to a personal best of 4:17.69 to take the win. Wolfson’s 4:18.04 made him a Millrose qualifier as well.

  “I just, basically, sat on Tobias and let him come back to me,” said Rizzo. “I just waited, took my chances, and did it. Tobias is a great competitor but it all paid off for me.”

 Another great competitor is Rizzo’s twin brother Matt, giving

Bronxville one of the nation’s top 1-2 punches in the mile.

   Alex Rizzo is bound for the U.S. Naval Academy next year, and is “unbelievably happy” to be pursuing a career as a Naval, or Marine officer.

  “I’ll have so many career options,” he said. “The one place I don’t want to be, though, is on a submarine."

  New Balance girls mile champion Isabelle Goldstein of Germantown (Pa.)

Academy earned her own Millrose invite with a 4:56.33 triumph in a race full of underclass talent.  Remarkably, the first five girls milers were juniors – with Sierra Dinneen of Notre Dame Academy a distant second in 5:05.25.

 “I’m really confident in my kick and it paid off again today,” said Goldstein.  “This is my first indoor season.  I was a swimmer, actually, before this and that probably helped me become a better runner. Swimming is really great cross-training  But I really just love to run.”

  With big sister Abbe already a sophomore star at Harvard, Goldstein hopes to join her in Cambridge in the fall of 2020.

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 Big things are surely in Luis Peralta’s track and field future.

 The Passaic High senior is already the Dominican Republic’s national 800 champion, and he signed to the University of Oregon this September. Peralta ran 1:19.64 in the 600m to set a New Balance and a USA #1 mark, chopping 0.68 off the meet record.

  More female standouts from yesterday included Girard College (Philadelphia) sprinter Thelma Davies, Palisades High pole vaulter Lydia Bottelier and Warwick Valley pole vaulter Kaeli Thompson.

  Davies, already a Pennsylvania state champion, lowered the

New Balance 55-meter dash record to 6.96; Bottelier raised the high jump record to 5-10, and Thompson (who is currently USA #1) raised the pole vault record to 13-0.

  Another pole vault winner was Liliana Cohen of Germantown Academy, who soared 12-0 to claim the title in the Novice division.

 After romping to the NJSIAA Meet of Champions cross country title at Holmdel Park, then running 11^th at Foot Locker Nationals, Randolph High senior Abby Loveys took a well-deserved two-week respite from her running routine.

  Now Princeton-bound Loveys is refreshed, and she proved it with a 4:53.3 1600 meter anchor on the DMR, lifting Randolph to the relay title in a USA #3 time of 12:08.76.

   New Balance Games organizers and Armory officials surely deserve the plaudits of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s talent scouts, too.     

   Whereas not too many other meets encourage such non-standard Olympic pursuits as racewalking and steeplechasing, New Balance Games officials give the walkers and the ‘chasers prime-time opportunities.

  As a result, Pearl River sophomore Ciara Durcan, senior teammate Jack Reynolds, and Tatnall senior Keelin Hays got their own chances to bask in the spotlight.

   Durcan outclassed all her 1500-meter walk rivals, striding in impeccable walk form to a 6:50.47 win (just 3.23 off the meet record), and leaving top rival Chloe Engin of Pittfield, Maine, far down the track.

   With her steady improvement, Durcan is viewed as a potential challenger to sensational Ohioan Taylor Ewert for Nationals honors back at The Armory on March 9, and a potential national team candidate not too far down the road.

  With his 4:42.72 1-mile steeplechase clocking, Reynolds sliced 6.04 seconds off the meet record, with runner-up Brian Villafuerte of East Meadow (4:46.04) also under the prior mark.

  “With no water jump, this is a little different than outdoors,” said Reynolds, whose top college choices at the moment are

Buffalo and Manhattan College.

   “But it’s a very interesting event, a real challenge.  I wish more guys would try it.”

  Moments later, the girls 1-mile steeple record fell, too, as both Hays (5:36.07) and Anna Rybczynski of Seneca (5:38.63) dipped under the previous best of 5:42.11.

  There was glory in it for all division winners, of course, in the two-day mega-meet that offered events in middle school, freshman, sophomore and novice categories, as well as varsity.

   Cheektowaga’s C.J. Krzanowicz lowered the boys freshman division 55-meter dash record to 6.68, and added the freshman long jump title with a leap of 19-9.