Home-track Quakers run in Penn Relays

With all of the top national collegiate teams circling the track at Franklin Field, it's sometimes easy to miss the Penn runners who compete in the Penn Relays. Despite the lack of attention they receive, though, the Penn men's and women's track teams both turned in some solid performances yesterday in the annual event. On the men's side, senior Bryan Kovalsky ran a personal best 14:22.19 in the 5,000-meter championship. He finished 17th in a field of 30. "Bryan had a really nice race," Penn men's track coach Charlie Powell said. "He ran a personal best by eight seconds and might've been able to run a bit faster." The other male Penn competitor was junior Anthony Ragucci, whose 9:11.03 time in the 3,000 steeplechase landed him 14th in a field of 17. "It was pretty disappointing," Ragucci said. "I was hoping to break nine minutes and just got cramped up at the start." The large fields in both men's races affected both Kovalsky and Ragucci. Kovalsky got out a bit too fast and fell back after a good start, while Ragucci got tangled up and caught back in the pack in his race. "Both those guys just weren't used to the big crowds," Powell said. "Next week [at Heptagonal Championships] will be better." The female Quakers had a few more athletes run on the first day of competition, and they met with some success. "The kids did a nice job all the way around," Penn assistant coach Tony Tenisci said. "I was really proud of them." The Red and Blue finished fifth out of seven teams in the College Women's Heptagonal 4x400. The Quakers' foursome of Bassey Adjah, Kiki Snooks, Alex Bliss and Jeraldine Cofie ran 3:51.60 -- ahead of Navy and Princeton but behind Columbia, Cornell, Yale and event winner Harvard. "We put it together at the last minute, and we did a superb job for not having our top guys," Tenisci said. Two Penn sophomores turned in quality performances on the track. Crystal Marsh finished third in her heat and 43rd overall in the 400 hurdles with a time of 63.22 seconds, while Kristen Koch ran a personal best by 20 seconds with a 17:34.03 finish in the 5,000. It was good for 34th. "Kristen just kept working hard the whole race," Tenisci said. "She made a great jump in time and just ran a great race." The Penn women also had a large group of athletes compete in field events. Two Quakers competed in the college women's Eastern shot put. Senior Yinka Orafidiya finished tied for 24th with a 39'10" throw, while freshman Tonia Sabino placed 30th with her 37'2.5" put. Orafidiya also had a very solid performance in the college women's hammer throw, finishing 19th with a toss of 157'7", while sophomore Julie Siebert-Johnson finished eighth in the javelin with a 145'1" throw. Rounding out the field events, Penn senior Bassey Adjah finished tied for 10th in the college women's Eastern long jump with a leap of 17'9.5". Tenisci felt that the women ran very well on the first day of competition. "You know, I'm an optimist, I'm not here to slam anybody," Tenisci said. "But, everybody did a very, very wonderful job.... God bless those young people."

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