Riverhead's Dwayne Morgan breaks 400-meter hurdles record at state qualifiers

Dwayne Morgan closed his Riverhead career by breaking the Blue Waves’ 400-meter hurdles record at the Section XI state qualifier at Port Jefferson High School, extending a late-season surge that already had him atop the school’s 110-meter hurdles list. The senior’s performance put him into the final statewide stage and gave Riverhead another signature result from an athlete who spent the spring raising the program’s ceiling.

Morgan had already made his biggest splash on May 26 at the Suffolk County Class A championships at Commack High School, where he won the 110 hurdles in 14.62 seconds and took down Angelo Confort’s school record of 14.69. Confort, a 2023 Riverhead graduate now at Binghamton University, had held the mark until Morgan edged him. Morgan also beat Longwood’s Kaden Reid in that county race, part of a rivalry that ran through Suffolk’s hurdles scene, even as Reid later won the 400-meter hurdles that day.

At Port Jefferson, Morgan’s Riverhead results listed him first in the 400-meter hurdles with a 54.37 in the final and 55.37 in the prelims. He also ran the 110-meter hurdles in 15.02 in the prelims and 15.11 in the final. The state championships were scheduled for June 13-14 at Webster Schroeder High School in Webster, New York, giving Morgan a chance to turn his qualifier into one more statewide showcase.

Riverhead also pointed to a broader rise behind the record. Morgan won the 400-meter hurdles in 56.56 seconds at the 54th St. Anthony’s Invitational, a time the district said ranked eighth overall in New York State, and he was named to Newsday’s list of the top 50 Long Island high school boys outdoor track and field athletes for 2026. Coach Tyler Lobenhofer said Morgan trained three days a week in the summer, added cross country in the fall for the first time and raced events he had never imagined, including the 400, 800, 1,000 and 5,000 meters.

That progression showed in his indoor season, too. Morgan ran 7.89 in the 55-meter hurdles at League I on Jan. 16, improved to 7.83 in the final and then set a personal best of 7.74 on Feb. 1 at the Section XI Boys Large School Team Championships before finishing second at the Suffolk County indoor championships in 7.75. Listed at 5-foot-7, Morgan compensated with quick first steps and the kind of hurdle form Riverhead believed could keep carrying him forward.