Official 2016 Penn Relay Discussion Thread

Men's 4 x mile has started. 2:01 for first 880.

Georgetown, UConn and Villanova were together after the first exchange of the men's 4xmile (4:05ish split). I find it a bit annoying that the three runners were fighting really hard to hand off in first and then the three second legs immediately start jogging and let the teams behind them back into it.

8:14 at 2 miles. Penn, Indiana, Georgetown, NOva, Iona, Uconn and Penn State all still in it.

Jonathan Gault wrote:

Georgetown, UConn and Villanova were together after the first exchange of the men's 4xmile (4:05ish split). I find it a bit annoying that the three runners were fighting really hard to hand off in first and then the three second legs immediately start jogging and let the teams behind them back into it.

Yes. That tactic makes less than zero sense. You'd think they'd think it through beforehand and realize how dumb that is.

12:26 at 3rd exchange. Same schools. Man these guys were jogging. IOna, Penn, Indiana. At least the Iona guy is going for it here.

IT's the Penn State b team as they studs are running 4 x 800.

Great anchor leg. The Iona guy tried to push it. He gapped Indiana, Gtown and Penn by 1+ seconds heading into the last lap. BUt on the backstretch Indiana and Georgetown came after him.

PEnn was the slowest to respond to but Awad's 5k strength resulted in him coming on at the end and getting the win late. He went from 4th to 1st in the final 150 and it was Penns first win in like 70 years!!

Slow time 1626.30

What a race!!! Four teams were in it at the bell -- Iona had about a 5-meter gap, with Indiana, Georgetown and Penn trailing behind.

Indiana made a hard move on the backstretch with 300 to go and Georgetown went with him, and Indiana had the lead with 200 to go.

Penn's Thomas Awad seemed to be out of it, but he was kicking hard and joined Indiana/Georgetown by the top of the homestretch. Then he swung wide and outkicked Indiana for the win.

RESULTS

PL SCHOOL/AFFILIATION MARK ATHLETES ID

1 Penn 16:26.30 Keaton Naff (4:08.0), Chris Hatler (4:06.7), Nick Tuck (4:11.3), Thomas Awad (4:00.3) E

2 Indiana 16:26.84 Matthew Schwartzer (4:07.7), Owen Skeete (4:07.2), Rorey Hunter (4:11.1), Jason Crist (4:00.8) B

3 Georgetown 16:27.52 Darren Fahy (4:06.8), Cole Williams (4:08.3), Spencer Brown (4:12.2), Ahmed Bile (4:00.2) D

4 Iona 16:29.12 Johannes Motschmann (4:08.8), Sebastian Hendel (4:07.4), Chartt Miller (4:09.4), Liam Dee (4:03.5) F

5 Villanova 16:34.64 Elliot Slade (4:06.4), Josh Lampron (4:08.4), Jordan Williamsz (4:11.2), Ben Malone (4:08.6) A

6 UConn 16:41.34 Michael O'Donnell (4:06.5), Nicholas Bertoline (4:09.6), Alvaro Chavez (4:09.8), Michael McGonnigle (4:14.4) H

7 Duke 16:44.50 Jordan Burton, Josiah Hanko, Shaun Thompson, Alec Kunzweiler I

8 Providence 16:48.84 Harvey Dixon, Nick Carleo, Trevor Crawley, Julian Oakley G

9 Penn State 16:52.35 John McGowan, Colin Abert, Wade Endress, Billy McDevitt C

10 Clemson 17:11.90 Cameron Thornton, Aaron Gambrell, James Dwyer, James Quattlebaum

Leroy Burrell is awesome. He has no qualms in calling out his former teammate and current US relay team coach Dennis Mitchell on the repeated failures.

Houston coach Leroy Burrell (whose Cougars were second in the College Championship of America 4x100, top U.S. team) had some pointed comments on the state of the U.S. relay teams on the NBCSN broadcast:

"I think we’ve gotta put our team together a little earlier if possible. I think we’ve had the same coaches working with these guys for many years and we’ve had failure after failure. It’s possible that it might be time for a bit of a regime change with the leadership. And I think the athletes have to be the catalyst that makes that happen. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get the stick around. I saw thousands of relays teams yesterday -- maybe not thousands, but hundreds of relays team yesterday get it around. But the professionals can’t. And that’s just not good for our sport."

I may have missed it earlier but I don't think any of the Jamaican women were wearing Puma shoes last race. Isn't that an important part of the sponsorship deal?

For Penn:

First relay win since 1974 (Shuttle Hurdles)

First oval win since 1959

First 4xMile win since 1950

This is their 10th win in this event

Anyone see Gatlin in the second leg of the 4x200 lean at the "finish line" as he completed lap 1, only to remember he was leg 2 and not the anchor, and speed up again to hand off to the third leg?

Dfhhgfdgh wrote:

Anyone see Gatlin in the second leg of the 4x200 lean at the "finish line" as he completed lap 1, only to remember he was leg 2 and not the anchor, and speed up again to hand off to the third leg?

Yeah that was weird. I noticed him slowing down too. But after Livermore went down, the U.S. had such a big lead that it didn't really matter.

Jon, I am a little surprised with your 4 x mile analysis. Once no one can give a guy a really working lead there is no reason to even give your next runner a one meter lead so that he has to lead when he doesn't want to. This isn't a 4 x 4.

This is a fundamental principle at the next level. In fact good coaches will tell their guys, do not give a guy a nothing to smaller lead so that he will need to back up into everyone just to stay out of the lead and get cover.

The only reason guys sprint that last 80-100M in these slower affairs is to maintain contact.

This was not that strong a field where many guys can run 4:00 or better just on their own, there was not going to be much separation if any here on first three legs. In the whole field maybe 5-6 guys had /have broke 4 flat I think. 2-3 on Gtown and they did not even win?

FloTRack and others(who wrote previews) still had Tiernan running last leg for Nova , while he is clearly running 5K in California this weekend.

How do people not even make phone calls to figure this stuff out? It takes like 90 minutes to call all the contenders.

BillCarr wrote:

For Penn:

First relay win since 1974 (Shuttle Hurdles)

First oval win since 1959

First 4xMile win since 1950

This is their 10th win in this event

I just texted a buddy and told him Penn won and his reply was "Weak field."

But Georgetown was in it. Yes, they didn't run 2 of their 4 milers indoors this year, Lederhouse and Bartelsmeyer, Lederhouse has been running awful outdoors (1440).

They did run a good lineup

Fahy - 846 steepler this year/345 1500 pb in 2014

Cole Williams - 357 mile this year indoors/344 outdoors

Spencer Brown - 345/404 this year

BIle - 357 mile indoorst this year/347 outdoors.

I think they are just past their peak. They pulled a Penn State and peaked indoors.

I do agree that if there are a bunch of teams handing off together on the anchor leg, it makes sense to give it to your anchor in second or third.

But my comments were more directed to the runners leading off the second leg. The three teams in front inherited a gap on everyone else, but instead of protecting it, they slowed way down at the start. I don't get why one of them wouldn't want to try to build on that lead and string the race out -- especially if you're a team like Georgetown who has several sub-4:00 guys. I see more of a reward of pushing the pace on leg two from the lead (padding a small lead into a bigger one) than risk (going out too hard -- even if you blow up, you have two more legs to get back into it).

And yes, ideally we'd be able to call all the contenders to figure out who's running what relay. I probably should have done a better job with that before this meet. But some coaches aren't willing to share their lineups, and others won't return our calls by deadline.

Trialswatcher wrote:

How do people not even make phone calls to figure this stuff out? It takes like 90 minutes to call all the contenders.

90 minutes x how many events???