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Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025
The Daily Pennsylvanian
Penn Relays

Competition may be over for rising senior Sam Mattis, but that hasn’t stopped the awards from continuing to roll in for him. With the dog days of summer approaching, the star discus thrower has been named male Outdoor Field Scholar Athlete of the Year by the U.S.


Track is a unique sport in that months of training all boil down to one race on one day that is over in a matter of minutes. The story is no different for Penn’s women’s 4x800-meter relay, as just nine minutesseparate four runners from glory. For the first time in nearly a decade, Penn will be represented in the championship heat for the 4x800m relay with a squad of junior Taylor Hennig, freshman Candace Taylor, and sophomores Ashley Montgomery and Carey Celata.

One week after splitting up to opposite coasts for the Florida Relays, Sam Howell Invitational and Stanford Invitational, the Red and Blue will be competing as one unit at this weekend’s George Mason Invitational in Fairfax, Va., albeit without a number of key contributors.

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Though sophomore Ashley Montgomery specializes in the mile, she will anchor Penn's talented 4x800-meter relay on Saturday in the championship final.

Track is a unique sport in that months of training all boil down to one race on one day that is over in a matter of minutes. The story is no different for Penn’s women’s 4x800-meter relay, as just nine minutesseparate four runners from glory. For the first time in nearly a decade, Penn will be represented in the championship heat for the 4x800m relay with a squad of junior Taylor Hennig, freshman Candace Taylor, and sophomores Ashley Montgomery and Carey Celata.


One week after splitting up to opposite coasts for the Florida Relays, Sam Howell Invitational and Stanford Invitational, the Red and Blue will be competing as one unit at this weekend’s George Mason Invitational in Fairfax, Va., albeit without a number of key contributors.


Freshman Jeff Wiseman will face some of the toughest competition of his young collegiate career at the Florida Relays.

Penn track and field may be known for traveling distances quickly on the track, but this weekend, the program will take its traveling abilities to the extreme. In the course of only a few days, the Quakers will send athletes to compete in Florida, California and Princeton in what should will serve as their biggest competitive test to date of the still-young season.




Before becoming Penn's Athletic Compliance officer, Elton Cochran-Fikes set numerous records for Penn track from 1970-74.

As a bookish, unathletic high school freshman, Elton Cochran-Fikes shuddered at the idea of anything having to do with sports. Little did he know that, less than a decade later, he would become the first Ivy League athlete to run a mile in less than four minutes.






The Daily Pennsylvanian

If Saturday is any indication, this could be a fun year for Penn track. In their first indoor track meet of the season and the last before break, the Red and Blue picked up victories in an impressive 15 events at the Lehigh Fast Times in Bethlehem, Pa.



Big 5 Cross Country Meet.  Penn dominated

And then there was one. While almost all of Penn’s cross country runners ended their seasons last weekend, junior captain Thomas Awad is the lone Quaker that still has one more race left in his season.



Big 5 Cross Country Meet.  Penn dominated

So now we know where Penn cross country stands in the Ivy league, but where does that put the program in the larger scheme of things? The Red and Blue will provide an answer to this question this Friday as they look to improve on their results from Ivy Heptagonals two weeks ago at NCAA Regionals.




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