April 21, 2010
PHILADELPHIA - While defending titles in four relay races and a pair of jumping events at the 116th Penn Relay Carnival this weekend at Franklin Field on the University of Penn campus, the Texas A&M squads will also seek hardware in a few other relay events.
Following the heptathlon and decathlon being held on Tuesday and Wednesday, the meet will start with full day of action on Thursday and continue through Saturday. Live results are available from the Penn Relays website (www.thepennrelays.com) while updated information on the Aggies daily progress can be found via twitter (www.twitter.com/aggietrk).
Last year Texas A&M left the meet with four Championship of America trophy wheels and totaled 17 Penn Relay watches. In addition to the relay success the Aggies enjoyed Tyron Stewart also won a pair of individual titles in the long jump and triple jump.
"We had a great meet there last year," noted Aggie head coach Pat Henry. "At this time of the season it's all about getting a little bit better each week. This is a great venue to put a little pressure on yourself to see how you respond in this kind of environment."
The Aggies, who remained ranked No. 1 with the women and No. 2 with the men, became the first school in the long history of the Penn Relays to claim Championship of America titles in the men's and women's 4 x 100 as well as the men's and women's 4 x 200 relays last season. Women's events were added to the Penn Relays schedule in 1979.
"On the ladies side we return everybody from last year and even added one or two good legs," said Henry of the short sprint relays. "On the men's side, we have some strength there with two new guys in that group. It's a good blend of talented people who have been there and a couple who haven't.
"We have some great challenges coming into a meet like this where so many relays are run over three days. Florida men are running very well right now from the 4 x 100 to the 4 x 200 and 4 x 400. There should be some tremendous races."
While A&M will face competitive fields in their respective title defense for those four relays, the Aggies will also offer a stern test for other schools in the women's shuttle hurdle relay, men's sprint medley relay, men's 4 x 800 along with the men's and women's 4 x 400 relays. Texas A&M will also field relay squads in the men's 4 x 800 and women's sprint medley.
In the shuttle hurdle relay the Aggies bring in four of the fastest hurdlers in the nation this season. The A&M line-up, with their personal best marks, include Donique' Flemings (13.33). They currently rank among the top 16 collegiate times of this season, with the trio of Ruddock (12.97), Thomas (13.08) and Mayo (13.10) at 4-5-6.
Mayo was a freshman running with three seniors back in 2008 when the Aggies placed second in an American record of 52.96 while LSU won in a collegiate record of 52.77.
"You never know about this race, it's the only meet we ever run it," said Henry. "We have four hurdlers that can run, so it will be interesting to see what this group can do. The shuttle hurdle will be one to watch this weekend."
The A&M women's 4 x 100 crew currently holds the world-leading time of 42.56 seconds in winning the Texas Relays title with the fastest time recorded in the month of April.
In the men's and women's 4 x 200 relays, each squad successfully defended Texas Relays titles earlier this month with the second fastest times recorded (1:20.61 and 1:31.41) on the Aggie all-time list, both behind school records (1:20.32 and 1:30.28) set at Penn in 2009.
Meanwhile, the men's 4 x 100 has experienced a couple of hiccups so far, winning two races while failing to finish two others. This past weekend they placed third in the rain during the Michael Johnson Classic in Waco.
"No question about it, we have not looked good yet in the men's 4 x 100," Henry stated. "We've run very well on the women's side. For the men we just haven't hit one yet.
"We do some things in training during practice that we're not quite ready to trust for them to do on a meet day. We have that opportunity this weekend to challenge ourselves to see if we can trust each other and get it done. We'll see."
Thursday's action for the Aggie begins at 10 a.m. (EDT) with Sasha-Kay Matthias and Tiffany Peters contest the long jump at 4 p.m.
Distance racing takes over Thursday evening with Joe Sauvageau running the 5,000 at 9:30 p.m. while Christina Munoz and Katherine Devlin compete in the 10,000 at 10:30 p.m.
Friday will feature men's relays and the Aggies will compete in four different relays ranging from prelims in the 4 x 100, 4 x 200 and 4 x 400 and a final in the sprint medley.
Texas A&M will need to juggle its line-ups in those relays to avoid having one or two sprinters running too much in one day.
"In certain rounds you have to run certain people," Henry said. "Sometimes it's about putting different people in different situations to see what they are going to do in this kind of situation so that it helps us down the road. We're going to learn something about our people this weekend."
Field events on Friday have Brett Bennett in the pole vault while Trinity Otto are in the college long jump. The women's championship triple jump will include Ashika Charan, Peters and Thomas while Matthias contests the college triple jump.
On Saturday, Stewart will only compete in the men's long jump this time around while Zuheir Sharif represents A&M in the championship triple jump with Echard in the college triple jump.