Owen Powell smashes high school indoor Mile record
Two Oregon HSers from same school also go sub-4
By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor, with BBTM support
BOSTON - Three boys from the Northwest flew all the way to Boston to knock out some lingering goals in the Mile.
Owen Powell, a senior from Mercer Island (WA), ran in the fastest section of the men's Mile on Friday at the Boston University Terrier DMR Challenge, and lowered his Mile time to 3:56.66, breaking Hobbs Kessler's high school indoor Mile record of 3:57.66 from 2021 by exactly one second.
A pair of former University of Washington runners, Sam Tanner and Kieran Lumb went 1-2 in the race. Tanner, a New Zealand Olympian, won it in 3:51.85 and Lumb followed in 3:52.39. Powell, the son of Washington head coaches Andy and Maurica Powell, was seventh.
Powell had broken 4 minutes already, going 3:57.74 at last week's Husky Classic, but the oversized indoor track made that time ineligible for an official high school record.
In the second-fastest section, Crater (OR) senior Josiah Tostenson also ran faster than Kessler when he broke the coveted 4 minute mark for the first time with his 3:57.41, good for 4th overall.
And for the first time in prep history, high school teammates are sub-4 Milers when fellow Crater senior Tayvon Kitchen, who already ran the fastest 3000 meters in prep history on the University of Washington's oversized 307-meter flat track, clocked a 3:59.61 for 11th place.
Powell, Tostenson and Kitchen are the seventh, eighth and ninth prep Milers to break 4 minutes indoors.
Overall, the trio are the 24th, 25th and 26th high school runners to break 4 minutes indoors or out, and Powell and Tostenson are now the #4 and #5 fastest U.S. high school Milers.
Oregon is the first state with three high school sub-4 Milers. Matthew Maton was the first to do it, 3:59.38, in 2015.
