Penn Relays is always an exciting meet. It’s the oldest track meet that is still currently contested. There is a mixture of collegiate, professional, high school, middle school, and masters levels of experience in the field. Over 15,000 athletes compete over the weekend from all over the world. U.S. teams have to contend with elite Jamaican teams that are selected based on prior performances to make the fastest teams possible. This weekend had many exciting races across the board, especially from the high school level. Slagowski became the seventh high school boy to break 4 minutes in the mile in history. Drew Hunter made the DMR extremely exciting as Loudoun Valley was near the back of the field when he got the baton. He won by less than a hundredth of a second. From the PA side of things, a Hoey won the mile as expected. However, it wasn’t Jaxson Hoey. Josh Hoey put on solid kick with 200m to go and won in 4:11. I’m interested to see if Jaxson was having a bad day or if he has some form of injury.
The State College 4x800 had a strong showing in prelims, allowing Milligan to comfortably secure the win with a 1:54 split. In the Championship of America Feffer had an incredible first lap and hung on for a 1:54 making up the ground that was left on the table by Wing in the first leg. These guys are really consistent on posting fast times, and I’m sure they are far from peaked. 7:44 is a strong showing this early in the season, and fourth in the Championship of America final is nothing to scoff at.
State College had some incredible individual performances. Veronika Karpenko won the triple jump posting an incredible 39’-5.25’’, narrowly edging out Jody-Ann Petrie of Jamaica. Not a surprise to some, Griffin Thompson posted a 15’7’’. The 3rd place indoor state vaulter has been silently improving at dual meets this season. He has made multiple close attempts at 15’10’’ and 16’, so look forward to seeing some higher marks this season.
No comments:
Post a Comment