Haverford’s switch successful in 4 x 800 Championship of America at Penn Relays
PHILADELPHIA — Haverford decided to make a little lineup change for the high school boys 4 x 800-meter relay Championship of America Saturday afternoon at the Penn Relays.
In the preliminary round, Gabriel Zwilling ran the leadoff leg, followed by Ethan Fingerhut, Quentin Ryan and Patrick Lawson and that proved to be a winning formula as the Fords turned in the third best time (7:58.61).
For the final, though, Fingerhut and Zwilling switched places.
“I’m a little more experienced,” Fingerhut said. “With the Jamaicans in the race we felt it would be better to have someone with more experience lead off.”
The move paid off. The quartet shaved more than seven seconds off its time from Friday to finish fifth in 7:51.13.
“It worked out well,” Fingerhut said. “I thought we ran well today.”
Haverford’s time ranks No. 1 in the state, according to pa.milesplit.com. Fingerhut, Zwilling, Ryan and Lawson now have their sights on the school record, which is 7:46.49, according to haverfordxctf.com.
“We’ll get it at districts,” Lawson said.
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It turned out to be a very busy day for Penncrest’s Ben Holst-Rightley and Kadin Salaria.
First, they teamed up with Daniel Munro and Rory McAfee to win the Central League 4 x 400 title for the first time since 2012. Then they joined McAfee and Brendan Hefferan to finish 14th in the boys 4 x 800 Championship of America. Less than an hour later Holst-Rightley came back and teamed up with Munro and Hefferan for eighth place in the Philadelphia Area 4 x 400.
The Lions ran 3:24.44 to win the Central League crown, 8:11.75 in the 4 x 800 and 3:27.41 in the Philadelphia area 4 x 400, the final high school event of the carnival.
“It was tough,” Salaria said. “We only had like 40 minutes between the 4 x 8 and the 4 x 4. I didn’t have anything left. We did the best we could.”
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For the second time in as many days and the third time in the last week, Episcopal Academy’s Sean Jones, Neo Vossschulte, Chris Purnell and Mekhi Rodgers broke the school record in the 4 x 100 when they ran 42.39 to take fifth in the Northeast 4 x 100 championship.
“I knew we were going to break it, just not by this margin,” said Vossschulte, who is headed to West Point. “We broke it by .41 seconds, that huge. I knew we were going to break it because we were all on the same page.”
The quartet initially broke the record last week at the Kellerman Invitational and again Friday at the Penn Relays. They don’t plan to stop breaking the mark anytime soon.
“We want to make it so it’s out of reach,” Rodgers said.
Episcopal Academy (Aidan McHugh, Na’rome Byron, Michael Woolery and Bryce Cooper) also had a busy day. The Churchmen won the Inter-Ac 4 x 400 (3:25.47) then came back later in the day and took third in the Philadelphia area 4 x 400 in the Philadelphia area race in 3:23.11.
Haverford School (Ahijah Goins, Amani Brown, Colin Campbell-Williams and Andre Inniss) took second in the Inter-Ac 4 x 400.
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Cardinal O’Hara (Noah Sharrett, Logan Maloney, Danny Schikel, Jaden Collins) came into the Catholic League 4 x 400 with the third-best time in the league but that didn’t matter to the Lions. Thanks’s to Collins’ anchor leg the Lions came away with the title.
It was O’Hara’s first win in the event since 2014.
“We wanted to come out here and put O’Hara back on the map,” Maloney said. “No one was taking us seriously.”
People will be paying more attention to the Lions now, especially when you consider that they’re going to be around for a while. Sharrett is a junior, Schikel and Collins are juniors and Maloney is just a freshman.
“We’re a young team and we have a lot of room for improvement,” Sharrett said.
