Syracuse University
Penn Relays
Orange Primed for 115th Penn Relays
4/22/2009 10:43:26 AM | Track and Field
Penn Relays Central | Live Updates & Schedule of Events
Men's Top Performances | Women's Top Performances
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – As a prelude to the BIG EAST Outdoor Championship next weekend, the Orange track & field team will engage in the internationally acclaimed Penn Relays from Thursday, April 23 to Saturday, April 25. Thursday marks the 115th running of the Penn Relays as the first occasion transpired on April 21, 1895.
Held at Franklin Field on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Syracuse will mix in with over 1,300 different high school, college and professional teams from all over the world. It is estimated that one race is ran every five minutes over 33 hours of competition and throughout the course of three days, 100,000-plus will gather at what is touted as the oldest and largest track & field carnival in the United States.
The Penn Relays will get underway on Thursday at 10:00 a.m. with the women's 400-meter hurdles. ESPN2 will pick up Saturday's final day of competition from 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Through six races in the first month of outdoor competition, seven women and five men have tallied NCAA Regional-qualifying marks.
Headlining SU's feats are freshman Natalie Busby and sophomore Catherine DeSarle. Last weekend, Busby broke the school record in the women's steeplechase at Princeton with her second-place showing of 10:33.45. In the opening outdoor weekend, DeSarle reset the 5,000-meter run standard with a third-place performance of 16:44.61 at the Stanford Invitational.
The Orange has continued its dominance in the steeplechase by way of senior Kyle Heath's heroics in his two outings this year. Heath, Syracuse's first distance All-American in 25 years, has shattered the NCAA standard at both the Stanford Invite and the Princeton Larry Ellis Invitational. At Princeton, Heath's mark of 8:51.39 earned top honors while his blistering pace of 8:40.89 was second to only a professional runner in Palo Alto, Calif.
Junior Curtis Bixler has also qualified for the NCAA Regional in the steeplechase with his fourth-place performance of 9:04.29 at the Princeton Sam Howell Invitational. Joining Heath and Bixler are hurdlers sophomore Jarret Eaton and senior Terry Marshall. Eaton and Marshall finished second and third, respectively, in the 110-meter hurdles at Princeton last week with times of 13.99 and 14.29. Senior Bernard Bush hopped into the NCAA Regional after his second-place vault of 7.40m at the UNC Invite on April 11.
Sophomore Rebekah MacKay and freshman Heather Stephens will join Busby on the line in Greensboro, N.C. at the NCAA Regional after they both clipped the school record last weekend in the steeplechase. MacKay's time of 10:36.04 garnered third while Stephens closed out the race in 10:39.77 for seventh.
Sophomore Katie Hursey was besides DeSarle as she broke the 5,000-meter record at Stanford in late March. Hursey turned in a fourth-place mark of 16:46.93 to make her eligible for the 5K NCAA Regional race.
The women's short distance contingent will be represented by sophomore Flings Owusu-Agyapong and junior Uhunoma Osazuwa. Owusu-Agyapong's first-place sprint of 11.66 at the UNC Invite qualified her for a spot on the line in the 100-meter dash while Osazuwa's winning jaunt of 13.85 last week at Princeton made her eligible for the 100-meter hurdles in four weeks (May 29-30).
Along with the three-day festivities in Philadelphia, the Orange will have one final chance on Sunday, April 26 at the Cornell Big Red Invitational in Ithaca, N.Y. to qualify for the NCAA Regional.
