Penn Relays brings out the best in North Penn

PHILADELPHIA >> They ran past Long Beach Poly, they ran past Sachem East out of Farmingville. N.Y.

And they were the second fastest 4×8 team out of all Pennsylvania schools competing.

“I’m pretty sure,” said North Penn anchor Mikaela Vlasic, “that we ran a much faster time this year than we did last year.”

In fact, almost nine seconds faster. North Penn’s outstanding 4×800-meter relay, hammering the Franklin Field track in 9 minutes, 13.59 seconds Thursday morning, qualified for Friday’s Championship of America Race, set for Friday at 1:10 p.m.

“Everyone is just so fast this year,” said Vlasic, who anchored the Lady Knights home with a split of 2 minutes, 16.30 seconds, the 10th fastest time out of 72 runners in the second Large Schools Heat. “Everyone’s putting up really good times.”

For North Penn, it was a tremendous start to the 122nd Running of the Penn Relays, as the Lady Knights 4×8 advances to the Championship of America for the second straight season and the 4×4 team raced to a rain-soaked victory in the Suburban National Race later in the day.

Vlasic and Phoebe Clowser return from last year’s 4×8 team, which ran a 9:22.20 to win its qualifying heat, going on to finish eighth in the big race with a 9:21.55.

This year, Ariana Gardizy (2:24.72) got the Lady Knights started and Clowser (2:17.23) began pushing NP up towards the front.

Then came Uche Nwogwugwu, running the eighth fastest split of the heat with a 2:15.34 to put the Lady Knights in position to qualify.

Nwogwugwu, Indoor State Champion in the 400 as well as silver medalist outdoors in 2015, has been the Lady Knights’ master key.

Said Vlasic: “She’s so good. We’re lucky to have her. She can do anything. You put her in anything and she can do it. She’s competitive. You see her go and it makes you wanna go too.”

Vlasic hammered it home, crossing third in a stacked heat that included sensational Western Branch out of Chesapeake, Virginia. (9:10.39) along with Mamaroneck, N.Y. (9:13.50).

North Penn is seeded seventh in a talented field of 12.

“That was our goal, to qualify for (Friday),” Vlasic said. “We’ll come back and we’ll compete with the best teams here.”

Central Bucks West’s Maddie Villalba ran a 2:12.73, third fastest in all four heats combined, to push the Bucks to the lead midway through. The foursome of Vanessa Barrow, Villalba, C.C. Davies and Laura Roth finished ninth in the second Large Schools heat.

Later in the afternoon, the Cheltenham girls 4×100 relay ran a 47.38 to qualify for Friday’s Championship of America at 2:25 p.m.

A team of Bria Barnes, Brielle Lewis, Alexis Crosby and Chanel Brissett won their heat by over three seconds on Thursday and ran the eighth fastest time overall.

Crosby and Brissett have helped propel the Panthers to the biggest race of them all this year — at the 2015 Penn Relays they pushed Cheltenham to first in the Tri-State Race.

Pennridge’s 4×1 team pushed through to Friday’s Large Schools Race, set for 2:22 p.m. A foursome of Holly Harbeck, Jessica Milligan, Zoe Williams and Kouri Peace ran a 48.38 on Thursday.

Rain would start to fall in the mid afternoon, making for some wet, slick field events. But Cheltenham’s Madison Langely-Walker battled to 13th place in the triple jump (37-4) and Souderton Area’s Moira O’Malley — competing for the second straight year — took 12th in the high jump, clearing 5-1.5.

“I felt more comfortable being here — last year was kind of taking it all in and figuring out what was going on,” said O’Malley, the high jump state champion indoors with a PR of 5-7 outdoors. “I was really consistent indoors, and coming out for the spring, this was one of the meets where I knew I did well last year and I wanted to do well again.

“With the weather, there’s really not much you can do other than mentally tell yourself ‘you gotta do your best.’”

Back on the track, the Lady Knights 4×4 crossed in 3:55.75, as a team of Natalie Kwortnik (59.89), Vlasic (58.73), Lauren Follis (1:01.11) and Nwogwugwu (56.03) took top honors in the Suburban National, with NP, Central Bucks West (4:00.35) and Pennridge (4:01.10) going 1-2-3.

“It meant a lot,” Nwogwugwu said of the victory. “The 400 runners in this state are so good — everyone’s always pushing each other.”