Hills East's Jessica Grover walks off with third at The Armory

Jessica Grover set the bar low and finished high. All the Half Hollow Hills East senior wanted to do was finish the one-mile racewalk at Saturday’s second day of the New Balance Indoor Nationals at without being disqualified.

Grover said she had never finished a race at The Armory without being sent off the track — which can happen when a racer bends her front knee or lifts both her feet slightly off the ground. It made the Manhattan track mecca a bit of a house of horrors for Grover, but also made the end result that much sweeter.

Grover placed an All-American third in the mile walk, finishing in seven minutes, 30.06 seconds — the highest Long Island finish in a Long Island-dominated race. Ohio’s Taylor Ewert won in 6:34.53 and Pearl River’s Ciara Durcan was second in 7:14.85.

“I broke the streak,” Grover said of not being disqualified. “It was very exciting … I didn’t care what place I got or my time, I just wanted to come home and have my race counted … I laid back a little. If I really wanted to, I probably could have stayed with [Durcan], but it wasn’t worth it.”

Grover said she’s been far more cerebral on the track this season, knowing when to take chances and when to pull back. When racers are in danger of being disqualified, they are shown a paddle from a referee, making composure a very important part of the event.

“I’m smarter now,” Grover said. “When I see the paddle, I slow it down a little bit to make sure I don’t get [disqualified] … That’s getting older and being more mature. It’s not always about going so fast and then being [disqualified]. Then your race doesn’t even count and it’s not even worth it. You just learn that you’d rather go slower and get a place than no place at all.”

Grover knew that Ewert was going to be nearly impossible to beat on Saturday, and treated her as such. The Ohio-based racewalker is so strong that she beat multiple pros en route to a record-breaking Millrose Games racewalk victory at The Armory last month.

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“I just let her go and do her thing,” Grover said of Ewert. “It’s not worth getting [disqualified] to try and chase someone who I’m not going to catch.”

It was the second consecutive weekend that Grover has garnered an impressive result. She placed second in the 1,500 meter race walk in 7:03.89 at the state indoor championships March 2 on Staten Island. She said she pulled a lot of her strategy for Nationals from the state championship race.

“I went out with everyone, stayed inside the pack, and on the last two to three laps, I picked it up and passed everyone,” Grover said.

Of the six All-Americans crowned in Saturday’s race walk, four were from Long Island. Massapequa’s Ashleigh Wakely was fourth in 7:32.80, Westhampton’s Natalie Ehlers was fifth in 7:33.00, and Bellport’s Emily Zahralban finished sixth in 7:33.06.

Elsewhere, Valley Stream South’s 1,600 sprint medley relay team, composed of Chibugo Obichere, Kaitlyn Ross, Lindsey Smith, and DeAnna Martin, placed an All-American fourth in 4:04.25. New Jersey’s Union Catholic won in 3:58.46.

“We didn’t do as well as we wanted to at states and we knew nationals was a chance to come back, and we did that,” Smith said.

Obichere led off the race and handed the baton smoothly to Ross, setting the tone for the rest of the relay.

“Getting the baton off in the first leg was our main focus in the race, just to get off strong,” Ross said. “I feel like I executed that pretty great.”

Obichere also ran 8.64 in the 60-meter hurdle trials, qualifying for Sunday’s semifinal.

“For the past season, we focused on snapping down my lead leg,” Obichere said. “I focused on that today … [Sunday], I want to improve upon finishing through the line because I didn’t do that today, running out strong and having a smooth race in general.”