penn relays...why are the nova women heavy favorites?

If Reid beat her at indoors, what makes you think she won't at outdoors? Other than hope.

Although I would like to see Nova win, but I have to agree that this race in far from a slam dunk; I can see several scenarios where Reed can get the baton with too much of a deficit.

I think Nova will be OK on the lead off, their freshman running the 1200 is a gamer and I think it will help her being able to run with a pack and not having to figure out her own pacing. Freshmen at Penn have a long history of getting in over their heads and blowing up. Nova will lose about a second on the 400m and could lose 2-3 seconds on the 800m; there are few schools in that race with 800m legs capable of splitting 2:04. I think Reed is the best anchor, but not by so much that she is going to catch certain athletes from 30 meters back, in fact, if G'Town gets at least 10 meter lead on Reed...game on.

Like always, a lot will depend on what other relays each school is running. If a school like Mich or Tenn for example, decide to put all of their eggs in the DMR basket and if Reed is anchoring 3 relays and her relay teammates are running 3-4 races , that could be very difficult for Nova. We have all seem the great anchors pull off the trifecta, but I don’t recall anybody doing it having to walk people down each time.

Because reid did not beat her indoors. Infeld and tomlin both redshirted indoors.

Hometown advantage.