Penn Relays Thursday Preview: College Women's DMR, HS Girls 3k And Distance Carnival Should Entertain

By LetsRun.com
April 21, 2010

More Previews:
*Friday's Penn Relays Preview: Oregon Will Vie For Crowns In Men's DMR And Women's 4 x 1,500 As High Schoolers Wage Epic Battle In Boys 3k
*Saturday's Penn Relays Preview: 4 x 400s, Usain Bolt, A Sub-16 Attempt?, A Great Pro DMR And Hopefully An Oregon-PSU 4 x 800

Following the sport of track and field is a maddening exercise, as it requires LOTS of time to properly know what is going on. We here at LetsRun.com view one of our main jobs as being to save you time. Previews of major meets like Penn Relays can save you hours. Thus, we've written up a preview of the Penn Relays to help you know when to tune in. If you are at the meet, you can obviously buy one of their meet programs. But if you are trying to follow it online, our preview will really help.

We want to thank Walt Murphy of Eastern track for his great insight into the sport. We used his newsletter to help us get started on this preview. Walt is one of the most knowledgeable track aficionados in the world. For more information on his News & Results Service, which includes Eastern Track, X-Country X-Press, and This Day in T&F, contact Walt Murphy at wmurphy25@aol.com. Much of his great insight has also been produced on the preview he wrote for ESPN/Dyestat.

The Penn Relays website contains the start lists for all of the events. The website is the best we've seen in terms of entries. The meet will be broadcast on ESPN2 on Sunday from 8 - 10 pm. Thepennrelays.com thanks to flotrack and livestream will have live video feeds of Penn and they have a nice little popup video player. If it is like the years past anything that will be on tv will not be streamed online (most of the Saturday action and some of the Championship of America stuff won't be online).

You can watch below in the video player below as well. There is a pop up video player on thepennrelays.com

 

In terms of Thursday, the major events in our minds are as follows, with the college women's DMR, the HS girls 3k and the distance carnival being the highlights. All times Eastern.

5:35 PM: College Women DMR - A battle between the top 4 teams from NCAA indoor. Can Tennessee hold off Oregon?
7:10 PM: HS Girls DMR - Top seed Saratoga Springs was 3.17 seconds off HS indoor record this winter.
7:25 PM: HS Girls Mile - The bigger names are in the 3k.
7:30 PM: HS Girls 3,000 - This might be the race of the night.
7:45-11:45 PM - Distance Carnival.

Analysis Of Featured Races

College Women DMR - 5:35 PM -Entrants/Results
This race is definitely worth watching as the top 4 teams from NCAA indoors are all entered in Tennessee, Oregon, Georgetown and Villanova, but Georgetown will be without anchor Emily Infield, who is red-shirting.

But in all honesty, everyone expects this race to come down to Tennessee versus Oregon like it did indoors. Tennessee almost certainly will have a big lead. Will Jordan Hasay, in her first Penn Relays appearance, be able to track down Brittany Sheffey? Indoors, the race between the two teams was one for the ages, as Sheffey's 4:35.98 split was just enough to hold off Hasay, who ran a brilliant 4:32.55. In our minds, the Ducks have to be considered the favorites, as it's harder to front-run outdoors in the wind. Plus, Hasay has already run 4:14.67 (Sheffey has run 4:19.49).

To read our recap of the exciting 2010 indoor race between Oregon and Tennessee, click here.

7:10 PM - HS Girls DMR - Entrants/Results
Saratoga Springs dominated indoors and their time of 11:38.60 is better than the Penn Relays record of 11:40.51.

HS Girls Mile - 7:25 PM - Entrants/Results
The bigger names are running the 3k.

7:30 PM - HS Girls 3,000 - Entrants/Results
The mile is expected to be a tossup and includes no big names in our book. The 3k is defiintiely the race to watch, as it includes last year's Penn Relays mile champ in junior Chelsey Sveinsson of Dallas, Texas. She's the #1 seed and has already run 10:07.15 for 3,200 this year. The #2 seed is Aisling Cuffe (Cornwell, NY), who was third at Nike indoors in 10:11.65 and also 2nd indoors on the national 3k list at 9:36.95. The #3 seed Emily Lipari, who will run for 'Nova next year, was one spot behind Cuffe indoors on the 3k list at 9:44.85, but Cuffe was the national leader indoors in the mile at 4:42.64.

Distance Carnival 7:45 PM - 11:45 PM - See Penn Relays Site For Results
The big names sadly mainly race in time trial affairs on the West coast, but there are some big names entered on the women's side. The two biggest names, Florida's Rebecca Lowe and Tennesee's Jackie Areson, are both double-entered in the 5,000 and 10,000. Areson was the SEC indoor champ in the 5k and double scorer indoors at NCAAs in the 3 and 5. She's already run 15:51 for 5k this year at Stanford. The Australian Lowe, who led the Gators to a 7th-place NCAA Cross showing (highest ever) by finishing 15th in the fall, hasn't raced outdoors this year. But Walt Murphy reports she ran 32:24.70 for 10k in December and the Penn Relays record is 32:22.96. D2 star Neely Spence is the #3 seed in the 5k and last year's 10k champ in Megan Hogan of George Washington is seeded #4.

In terms of the men, the men's steeple is definitely the race of the night, as runners from William and Mary (Harry Miller), Cornell (Adrien Dannemiller), Auburn (Scott Novack) and Virginia (Andrew Mearns) are the top four seeds in the race being billed by Penn Relays officials as the 1st-ever Battle of the Under-40 Coaches. The winner of this race will have his coach unofficially christened as the best 30-something-year-old coach in the land, as coaches Alex Gibby, Robert Johnson, Mark Carroll and Jason Vigilante are all about to officially reach middle age. Okay, that's a joke for those of you that don't know. We were just trying to find something interesting to say. On a serious note, Miller has run 8:53 this year, Dannemiller ran 8:48 last year and made The Big Show, Novack has run 9:00 in the past, and Mearns has run 9:03 this year (but ran 9:53 at ACCs last weekend).

In the men's 5k and 10k, Auburn has top seeds in Elkanah Kibet (28:26 last year) and Jean-Pierre Weerts (13:48 last year).

In terms of Olympic Development races, the biggest name on the men's side is Steve Slattery, who will try to revive his career at 8:05 pm in the steeple. In the women's action, the ladies 5k (9:15 pm) the top seeds are Carmen Douma-Hussar, Allison Grace, Marina Muncan and Francis Koons.

The distance schedule is as follows:

70 College Men's 3,000m Steeplechase Championship 7:45 PM   71 College Men's 3,000m Steeplechase College 7:55 PM   72 Olympic Development Men's 3,000m Steeplechase 8:05 PM   73 Olympic Development Women's 3,000m Steeplechase 8:15 PM   74 College Women's 3,000m Steeplechase Championship 8:15 PM   75 College Women's 3,000m Steeplechase College 8:30 PM   76 College Women's 3,000m Championship 8:45 PM   77 College Women's 5,000m Championship 8:55 PM   78 Olympic Development Women's 5,000m 9:15 PM   79 College Men's 5,000m Championship 9:35 PM   80 College Men's 5,000m College 9:55 PM   81 Olympic Development Men's 5,000m 10:15 PM   82 College Women's 10,000m Championship 10:30 PM   83 Olympic Development Women's 10,000m 10:30 PM   84 College Men's 10,000m Championship 11:10 PM   85 Olympic Development Men's 10,000m 11:10 PM

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