April 25, 2008
PHILADELPHIA - At the second day of competition at the Penn Relays held at historic Franklin Field in Philadelphia, the Georgetown University track & field turned in three top-10 performances with the women's 4x1500m relay and the men's distance medley relay teams finishing fourth in the championship and the women's sprint medley relay taking ninth place. The Hoyas ran hard and look forward to one more day of competition at the Penn Relays. The women's college championship in the 4x1500m relay saw the quartet of junior Avril Ogrodnick (Beaconsfield, Quebec/Beaconsfield), graduate student Elizabeth Maloy (Loudonville, N.Y./Academy of Holy Names), junior Maggie Infeld (University Heights, Ohio/Beaumont) and senior Joanna Rodgers (Fairfax, Va./J.W. Robinson/NC State) finish fourth with a time of 17:47.42, a time that ranks fifth on Georgetown's all-time top performance list. For the 4x1500m relay. Ogrodnick ran the first leg, staying strong at second for a majority of her race and pulling ahead to first place before the final two turns and recorded a 4:30.1 split. She fell back to fourth behind Michigan, Tennessee and Penn State before handing off to Maloy. Maloy ran a very tough race (4:20.5) and pulled the Hoyas into first place by the end of the second frame and Infeld held the lead for the majority of the third leg, holding off Tennessee and running a 4:21.8 split. At the end of the last straightaway and going into the final turn, Michigan hit its stride to take the lead going into the fourth stanza. Rodgers took over at anchor and ran a 4:35 split. She held strong at third for the majority of the competition, but Villanova secured third place in the final straightaway as the Hoyas took fourth. Michigan placed first with Tennessee following up in second. Under the afternoon sun, the men's distance medley relay went out with senior Matt Debole (Winston-Salem, N.C./Mount Tabor) leading off with the 1200m with a 2:56.8 split. During the first leg, Arkansas made a move to take the lead off a turn but Texas came around to surprise the pack and take a solid lead. Sophomore Danny Harris (Deer Park, N.Y./St. John the Baptist) took over the second stanza for the Hoyas and recorded a 47.9 split and senior Michael Banks (Holden, Mass./Washusett Regional) ran a 1:51.9 split in the 800m leg. Junior Andrew Bumbalough (Brentwood, Tenn./Brentwood Academy) ran the anchor leg, recording a 3:58.9 split. With one lap to go, the top three teams pulled away and Bumbalough held strong to solidify the Hoyas' fourth-place standing. As the sun started to set behind Weightmann Hall on the Penn campus, the women's sprint medley relay team took the track. Sophomore Sarah Wernik (Florence, Mass./Northampton) led off for the Blue and Gray with freshman Deidra Sanders (Memphis, Tenn./Eastern) running the second 200m leg, sophomore Abigail Johnson (Willingboro, N.J./Milton Hershey [Pa.]) running the 400m leg and sophomore Renee Tomlin (Ocean City, N.J./Ocean City) anchoring with the 800m frame. The quartet finished ninth with a time of 3:57.01, good enough for 19th on the Georgetown all-time top performance list. The men's 4x100m relay team competed in the first heat of the day for the Blue and Gray as the quartet of junior Kenny Mitchell (Atlanta, Ga./Weber) and freshmen Spenser Carter (Fairport, N.Y./Fairport), Sean Suber (Mitchellville, Md./DeMatha) and Chris Kinney (Stockbridge, Ga./Stockbridge) finished with a time of 41.24. The time ranks second on the Georgetown all-time list, only behind the school record that this same quartet set at the Larry Ellis Invitational last weekend. The time is an IC4A qualifying time. The relay squad of Mitchell, Carter, Suber and Kinney competed together in the 4x200m relay heat and timed in at 1:27.80. The time ranks among the top 10 on the Georgetown all-time top performance list in that event. Georgetown returns to competition tomorrow for the final day of competition at the 2008 Penn Relays. Results and updates on the events can be found at the official site of the Penn Relays, www.thepennrelays.com.
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