Penn Relays Friday 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

By LetsRun.com
April 21, 2010

More Previews:
*Thursday's Penn Relays Preview: College Women's DMR, HS Girls 3k And Distance Carnival Should Entertain
*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 Penn Relays site itself as each event includes his comment plus his 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 Friday, the major events in our minds are as follows, with the college women's 4 x 1,500, the college men's DMR, and the boys 3,000 being the highlights. All times Eastern.

Key Friday Penn Relays Events - Full Schedule/List of Entrants/Results Here
9:00 AM - 400-Meter Hurdles: Will Johnny Dutch run?
12:55 PM - HS Girls 4 x 800 Championship Of America
1:05 PM - College Women 4 x 100 Championship Of America
1:30 PM - College Women 4 x 1,500 Championship Of America: Can Oregon break Villanova's record from last year?
2:40 PM - HS Girls 4 x 100 Championship Of America
2:55 PM - College Women Shuttle Hurdles Championship Of America
3:15 PM  - College Women Shuttle Hurdles Championship Of America
4:00 PM  - College Men DMR Championship Of America - The marquee event at Penn should come to a bunch of 800 guys anchoring. Who will win? Penn State or Oregon or UVA?
5:55 PM  - High School Boys DMR
6:10 PM - High School Boys Mile
6:15 PM - High School Boys 3,000 - This race may get little popular press, but it's a must-see for true distance fans. We don't care what the seeds say ...
6:30 PM - College Women's Sprint Medley Championship Of America
6:55 PM - College Men's Sprint Medley Championship Of America

Analysis Of Featured Races

9:00 AM - 400-Meter Hurdles - Entrants/Results
You probably don't want to get up to watch this event this early, but if you are at Penn this early, you might want to see if Johnny Dutch runs. The South Carolina junior was the NCAA and USA runner-up last year and is the NCAA leader this year.

1:30 PM - College Women 4 x 1,500 Championship Of America - Entrants/Results
Tennessee, Oregon, Villanova and W. Virginia are the top 4 seeds.

Without Sarah Bowman, it should be hard for the Tennesse repeat. In fact, let's state it now. They won't repeat.
Oregon will win. The question is, "Can they break Tennessee's meet record from last year?"

The Ducks are so good that Jordan Hasay isn't even their best 1,500-meter runner. The Ducks' four runners have already put up the following four seasonal bests:

Zoe Buckman - 4:12.80 (senior)
Jordan Hasay - 4:14.67 (freshman)
Anne Kesselring - 4:18.80 (freshman)
Nicole Blood - 4:19.57 (senior)

Those seasonal bests add up to 17:05.84. Tennessee, thanks to a 4:10 from Bowman, ran 17:08.34.

4:00 PM - College Men DMR Championship Of America - Entrants/Results *Event History
This is viewed by many as the signature event of the Penn Relays. The top four seeds are Villanova, Oregon, Virginia and Penn State. Who can win?

The defending champs Villanova can't, as they are without their anchor from last year in Matthey Gibney, who is hurt. The Wildcats have won a record 23 DMR titles, including 16 straight from 1966 to 1981. Perennial power Arkansas, which has won the event 15 times, also won't be in the hunt, as they are missing the services of their anchor Dorian Ulrey, who is red-shirting.

That leaves us Oregon, UVA and Penn State. Who can and will win?

The DMR normally comes down to the anchor, and the thing that makes this race a little hard to predict is that the big three all have more proven 800 guys as their big guns. This race very well could come down to the top three finishers from the 800 final of the 2010 NCAA Indoors.

The way we see it, if UVA wants to win, they will need to anchor the precocious Robby Andrews, who nipped Andrew Wheating to win the indoor 800 title. His mile PR is "only" 4:01, but the guy has a lethal kick and often the anchor leg starts slow. The same is true of Penn State. They, like Oregon, have a ton of guys to choose from for the first two legs, but if they are going to win, they'll have to anchor Ryan Foster, who recently ran 3:41.

If Oregon anchors Wheating, they should be the champs in our minds. Yes, Andrews beat him indoors, but that was indoors and in the 800 and that was after Wheating made up a huge deficit to win the DMR for Oregon the day before (click here to read our recap of that amazing race). Wheating is a better runner than Andrews at this stage - no question in our minds. The question about Wheating is simple: "Is he a winner?" We may find out on Thursday if the Ducks anchor him.

Even if they don't anchor Wheating, they probably are still the winners, as they'd then anchor an NCAA runner-up in true frosh Mac Fleet, but hanging a freshman out to dry on the anchor with Andrews and Foster coming from behind requires a lot of confidence in him. The problem is it's hard to run away from teams in the DMR outdoors, and thus it then comes down to the kick and Foster and Andrews can kick.

Here are the top times (2010 outdoor times unless otherwise noted) guys for the top 3 teams.

Oregon Andrew Wheating - 1:45.03 PR/ 3:38.60 PR Mac Fleet - 3:57.70 indoors/1:49.19 outdoors Matthew Centrowitz - 3:36.92 last year, 13:47/3:46 this year AJ Acosta - 3:58.08 Travis Thompson - 1:49.54 Elijah Greer - 1:47.33i/1:50.62

Penn State Ryan Foster - 1:47.32/2:19.60i/3:41.26 Casimir Loxsom - 1:47.98i/1:48.41 Owen Dawson - 1:48.85/3:45.42 Lionel Williams - 1:49.07 Sam Borchers - 3:49.91

UVA Robby Andrews - NCAA indoor 800 champ Lance Roller - 1:47.88 last year/ACC champ in 2010, beating Andrews Sintayehu Taye - ACC 1,500 champ, 4:04.04 mile PR Zach Vrhovan - 1:50.67 Alex Bowman - 1:50.85

The more we look at it, the more we think Oregon should dominate this thing, but the thing about the DMR is it's hard to dominate in the event. Normally it comes down to the anchor. The question for the Ducks is who they run on the 800 leg, as Greer is struggling. If we were Oregon, we'd lead off Centrowitz, then run Fleet on the 800 and then anchor Wheating. Either that or Fleet, then Thompson and then Wheating. One thing is certain, though - Oregon coach Vin Lananna is the best in the business when it comes time to pick who is ready and we'll bet he picks a great lineup. Indoors, Acosta led off and Thompson ran the 800.

Predictions: 1) Oregon Wins 2)????? Look for Indiana, led by Andrew Bayer, to contend for a top 5 showing.

5:55 PM - High School Boys DMR - Entrants/Results
Lots of potential sub 10:10 type teams. Go to dyestat.com or milesplit.com for more info.

6:10 PM - High School Boys Mile - Entrants/Results
The top guys are in the 3k.

6:15 PM - High School Boys 3,000 - Entrants/Results
This race may get little popular press, but it's a must see for true distance fans. We don't care what the seeds say. One of the following three guys will win:

Jamaica's Kemoy Campbell ran 3:42.57 last year. He's now 19 and has added a 14:18.55 to his résumé. Both are national junior records in Jamaica.
New York's Alex Hatz (Fayetteville-Manlius), who ran a 4:05 mile indoors.
California's North Carolina's Jake Hurysz, who just ran 8:49 with a 60-second last lap to win at Arcadia.

LRC Analysis: Campbell is 1 year and 41 days older than Hatz. He's from Jamaica. Hatz is from upstate New York. We're rooting for (and actually kind of expect) Hatz to pull it off. If Hatz breaks four this spring, it won't surprise us. As for Hurysz, we think it's hard to replicate that type of magic a few weeks later after a cross-country trip. We'd be more surprised if he won than if he didn't finish in the top 3.

6:25 PM - High School Girls 4 x 400 Championship Of America - Entrants/Results
After the prelims, we'll have a good idea of who is the team to beat.

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