Delco Boys Championships: Penncrest hobbles to long-awaited title

GLENOLDEN >> For years, the odds were stacked against Penncrest winning the team title at the Delaware County Boys Track & Field Championships, but not because of a lack of talent.

The problem was that the weekend of the county championship coincided with the senior prom at Penncrest, which pretty much took the seniors out of the mix for Lions, especially on second day of competition when 10 of the 11 track finals take place.

This year, however, that wasn’t the case. Penncrest moved its prom to June 2, which meant the Lions had their full contingent of athletes and the result was the first county title in no one knows how long.

“I think we won one in the ’80s,” Penncrest coach George Munro said. “I think there’s a plaque or something in the trophy case.”

It took a seventh-place finish in the 4 x 400-meter relay to secure a 74-71 victory over Episcopal Academy for the overall county title. The Lions topped Haverford by a point, 89-88, for the National Division crown, while Strath Haven edged EA, 100-98, for the American Division title.

Confused? Well, you should be. The meet is scored three ways, overall and in a two-division format based on enrollment, with the nine largest schools in the National and the 12 smallest schools in the American.

The bottom line is Penncrest is the county champ for 2018, doing so without winning a single individual event Saturday evening at Interboro’s South Avenue Athletic Complex.

“We’ve been banged up so much this week it’s amazing that we pulled it out,” senior Billy Angelina said.
Penncrest won because of its depth. Marcus Troy, Collin and Garrett Tait, and Ahmed Barrie won the 4 x 100, while Brendon Luong, Luke Narbus,

Justin Senackerib and John McGlinn captured the 4 x 800 to account for Penncrest’s only victories on Day 2.

Matt Arndt finished second in the discus (130-0). Avery Lederer took third in the 1,600 (4:27.07). Angelina was sixth in a sizzling 800 (1:58.96), Sam Rose and Christian Gallagher were second and fourth, respectively, in the pole vault with vaults of 11 feet and 10-6.

“I’m very happy,” Angelina said. “I dropped three seconds off my best time and qualified for districts.”

Something that would not have been possible if the prom was this weekend.

“Luckily that got pushed back so we were able to run,” Angelina said. “We were happy because we didn’t have a great meet here last year and this was an opportunity to go crazy and do our best.”

***

While the Lions were busy salting away the team title, Episcopal Academy senior Elias Lindgren put on quite an individual show. He completed the distance trifecta by winning the 800- and 1,600-meter runs to go with the 3,200-meter title he won Thursday. He did so in record time.

Lindgren, a senior who is headed to Williams College, broke the 34-year-old meet record in the 1,600 that was held by Penn Wood’s Mark Fowler with a personal best time of 4:18.34. Fowler ran 4:19.04 in 1984.

“My plan was to go hard for the first 800, run a 2:06 or a 2:07 and see what I have left,” Lindgren said of his record time in the metric mile. “I went out in 60 seconds (for the first 400), which is a little fast for me and then ran 65-67 (seconds) for the final three laps.”

Lindgren wasn’t done. He edged Radnor’s Ethan Zeh by three-hundredths of a second with a personal best time of 1:56.29. Zeh (1:56.32), Upper Darby’s Jarnail Dhillon (1:56.53), Penn Wood’s Talus Gaymore (1:58.04), Haverford High’s Brendan Campbell (1:58.60) and Angelina (1:58.96) all bettered the qualifying standard (1:59.64) for the District 1 championships.

“I almost fell over when I leaned at the end,” Lindgren said. “It was incredibly close.”

Lindgren was supposed to run the third leg of EA’s 4 x 400-meter relay, which finished second, but was scratched because he got sick after the 800.

“For a while, I was glad I was out of the 4 x 4, but then insanity took over and spent several minutes trying to convince my coaches that I was OK to run,” Lindgren said. “But we had Malcolm Folk, who’s just a freshman, fill in for me and he did a great job.”

***

The Delco Championships marked the return of Springfield sprinter Philip Shovlin. He has been out since he suffered a sprained Achilles’ tendon in his left ankle at the indoor state championships. Shovlin ran for the first time in the outdoor season in the trials for the 100-meter dash Thursday and came back Saturday to win the title for the second straight year with a time of 11.27 seconds.

“I wasn’t real happy with my time, but first place is first place,” Shovlin said. “I got off to a bad start but I was able to pick it up between 20 and 50 meters. My goal is to get better and get back to 10.7 or 10.8, which is what I was running this time last year.”

***

Ridley’s Tony Graham won 110 and 300 hurdles, while Upper Darby’s Gbarwho Flahn was first in the 200- and 400-meter dashes. Graham won the high hurdles in 15.34 and the intermediate hurdles in 40.24.

Flahn edge EA’s Jack Bush for the 200-meter crown (22.58) and held off Justin Bromley for the 400-meter title in 49.29. Flahn came back to anchor Upper Darby to a third-place finish in the 4 x 400.

Abdul Griggs, Lamaj Curry, Malik Langley and his twin brother Malachi of Chester held off Episcopal Academy to win the 4 x 400-meter relay.

One vault at 11 feet was good enough for Nick Delisle of Marple Newtown to win his first county pole vault title. He earned the gold over Rose on fewer misses.

Alton McKenley of Bonner & Prendergast was the overall winner in the long jump at 20-11.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a Reply