The Penn women's track team finished sixth in the 4x100-meter ECAC Championship race on Friday at the Penn Relays.
Jesse Carlin, Shaunee Morgan, Krysta Copeland and anchor Izu Emeagwali completed their run in 47.04 seconds, just over a second behind winner Penn State. East Carolina finished second and Army finished third.
The Quakers suffered from bad handoffs along the back stretch, which left coach Gwen Harris in a worse mood than she was in on Thursday after the 4x400m team won the Heptagonals relay.
"I thought we'd get fourth and we got sixth," Harris said. "We didn't have good passes, and when you are in a four-by-one, that puts you where we finished."
Carlin, a freshman from Staten Island, N.Y., who previously raced at Penn Relays with Saint Joseph by the Sea High School, nonetheless enjoyed the experience.
"It's Penn Relays, it's totally different from any other meet - you just get so extra-excited," she said. "It was extra pressure [at the college level] because you knew that the people were faster there."
The women's 4x100m Championship of America relay was a rout for the Southeastern Conference, with South Carolina finishing first in 43.40 seconds -- the fourth-fastest time in Penn Relays history. Tennessee finished second with a time of 43.58, also among the top ten of all time, while Florida finished third in 43.86 seconds and Louisiana State finished fourth in 44.07 seconds.
When the college 4x100m relays ended, the Penn contingent at Franklin Field enjoyed a few moments of levity as four Quakers football players ran in the Men's Olympic Development 4x100m relay. Junior running back Kelechi Okere, sophomore wide receiver Von Bryant, junior defensive back Rob Lombardi and junior defensive back Michael Johns ran under the name Penn Football Ryders, and were forced to wear the wrestling team's singlets for lack of any other available uniforms.
"We all just wanted to run a little bit, and [Penn men's track coach Charlie] Powell just gave us a chance to have some fun with it," Bryant said. "The uniforms are interesting stories -- it's pretty hard to get them, but everything worked out."
In other Friday events involving Penn teams, the men's 4x100m team finished fourth in its heat with a time of 41.65 seconds. SEC schools dominated here as well -- Louisiana State finished with the top time in all heats, 39.50 seconds, while Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas came in second through fourth. The Penn men's 4x400m team finished third in the Heptagonal relay with a time of 3:14.81, good enough to qualify for Saturday's IC4A Championship relay. The men's sprint medley team finished sixth in its heat with a time of 3:33.22, while the women's sprint medley team finished second in its heat with a time of 3:55.13. Texas Tech swept the Championships of America in the sprint medley, with the men winning in 3:15.08 and the women wining in 3:47.50.
In the 110m hurdles, Quakers freshman David Whitehurst, who is also a guard on the men's basketball team, finished ninth in his heat with a time of 14.34 seconds. In the 100m dash, sophomore Grafton Ifill -- who transferred to Penn this past year from Clemson -- qualified for the Championship of America race with a time of 10.67 seconds, the fourth-best time in his heat and the fifth-best overall.
In field events, Penn senior Jesse Shoemaker placed 10th in the Eastern tier of the men's pole vault, clearing 4.45 meters. In the long jump, senior Brent James finished 21st with a mark of 6.51 meters or 21 feet, 4.25 inches, while junior Pete Cochran finished 22nd with a mark of 6.50 meters or 21 feet, 4 inches. In the shot put, Penn's Brian Brazinski finished last, with a throw of 12.72 meters. The winner of that event, Rob Goffrey of Rowan (N.J.), set a new Penn Relays record with a throw of 17.48 meters.
2004 Penn graduate Brian Chaput, who won back-to-back men's javelin Championships of America for the Quakers in 2003 and 2004, easily won the men's Olympic Development javelin event this year with a throw of 79.62 meters or 261 feet, 3 inches. That distance was 2.88 meters, or nine feet and six inches, longer than his winning throw from last year. Chaput competed this year for the AC/Nike team. The second-place finisher, Paul Pisano of the Shore AC team, recorded a throw of 70.26 meters or 230 feet, 6 inches.
On Thursday, Penn senior Samantha Crook set a new Penn record in finishing atop the second tier of women's pole vaulters. Crook cleared 12 feet, 11 inches, or 3.91 meters. Amy Linnen of Kansas won the Championship of America, clearing 13 feet, 10 inches, or 4.22 meters. Crook's mark would have placed her third in the Championship tier.
In Thursday night's session of long-distance races, four Penn runners competed in the second tier of the 5000-meter run. Sophomore Ian Foley finished 27th in 15:00.02; senior Matt Van Antwerp finished 28th in 15:00.20; junior Bretton Bonnette finished 32nd in 15:19.91; and freshman Reid McEwen finished 34th in 15:32.31. In the steeplechase, Penn freshman Alejandro Sheppard finished last in the second tier with a time of 10:00.56. In the women's steeplechase Championship of America, senior Claire Duncan finished seventh with a time of 10:39.03. In the men's 10,000-meter race, Penn sophomore Mike Cassidy finished 30th with a time of 31:10.51. Quakers freshman Brian Goldberg also competed in that race, but did not finish.
Notes: After an incredibly successful Thursday, West Catholic High School star Nicole Leach ran the second leg of the Burrs' 4x100m relay team, which won the consolation relay for small schools in a school record time of 47.18 seconds. She could not help her team to victory Friday in the girls' 4x400m Championship of America race, however. West Catholic's third runner in the relay, Nia Ali -- a replacement for usual third-leg runner Christiana Taylor -- dropped the baton handoff from LaTavia Thomas and could not recover the lost ground. She fell behind many of the other runners in the first half of her leg, but got back to the middle of the pack by the time she handed off the baton to Leach. Leach then ran a valiant 53.4-second split in the anchor leg and was able to push West Catholic to a third-place finish in 3:43.52, but many of the fans in the stands could only wonder what might have been. There was some consolation for the Burrs, however, as they received the traditional Penn Relays watches for recording the top time by an American team.
Friday's attendance was 39,008. The rain which had been forecast stayed away, and the competitors ran under overcast, but wind-free, conditions.
