The fans at Franklin Field rose to their feet as two elite NCAA distance runners turned the corner in the final lap of the men’s distance medley relay, the marquee race of the second day of the Penn Relays.
One was Edward Cheserek, a star sophomore at Oregon who led the Ducks to titles in the same event at last year’s Penn Relays and again at the NCAA indoor championships this season. The other was Jordy Williamsz, a star junior at Villanova who fed off the cheers of the large contingent of ’Nova fans as he tried to upset the mighty Cheserek.
In the end, Williamsz nearly did just that as he ran a fantastic sub-4-minute mile in the final leg. It just wasn’t quite enough to knock off Cheserek and Oregon, which captured its second straight DMR title with a time of 9 minutes, 33.86 seconds in front of 39,130 fans at the famed track and field meet Friday.
“I thought I might be able to hold him off,” Williamsz said. “But he’s good, man. He’s real good.”
Cheserek, a two-time national cross country champion who was named athlete of the meet for men’s relays last year at Penn, is indeed good. He’s so good in fact that Oregon coach Andy Powell revealed afterwards that the team’s strategy was to get Cheserek the baton in second place, which he said his first three runners — Johnny Gregorek, Marcus Chambers and Niki Franzmair — “executed perfectly.”
Villanova, meanwhile, fell a little bit behind Oregon and Columbia — which led for most of the final leg — after Dusty Solis ran the opening 1,200-meter leg in 2:57.51, Ishmael Muhammad followed with a 48.42 in the 400 and Josh Lampron ran the 800 in 1:49.51.
Williamsz eventually caught up to the lead pack and raced past Cheserek with about 200 meters left, before the Oregon star chased him down. Williamsz’ was one of three competitors in the race to crack the 4-minute-mile barrier, running his leg in 3:58.94. Cheserek ran his mile leg in 3:59.44 and Sean McGorty pushed Stanford into third place with a 3:59.35 run — none faster than Williamsz, who nevertheless wasn’t happy with his own performance.
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“I’m the kind of guy that unless I feel like we achieved what I wanted, there’s always more I can do,” the Aussie-born Williamsz said. “We didn’t win. I really wanted to win. I thought we could. People think Oregon had it easy but I thought we had a real chance.”
Villanova finished the race in 9:34.36 — just five-tenths of a second behind Oregon. Three other Big 5 squads raced in the DMR Championship of America with Saint Joseph’s placing eighth in 9:43.65, La Salle coming in 10th in 9:44.63 and Penn finishing 10th in 9:53.81.
Villanova and some other local and national powerhouses will get another chance Saturday to win Penn Relays watches in two more prestigious distance relays — the 4xmile (1:15) and the 4x800 (4:40).
And when asked if he’d like to be in the same position vs. Cheserek in the final day of the historic meet that Villanova considers its most important of the year, Williamsz didn’t hesitate for a second.
“I’d love that,” the Villanova junior said. “That would be great.”
Villanova women take day off
Fresh off its thrilling win in the distance medley relay to kick off the Penn Relays on Thursday, the Villanova women did not add another title to its collection Friday.
That’s because the Wildcats didn’t even compete.
In a somewhat surprising move, head coach Gina Procaccio opted to keep her team out of the 4x1500 Championship of America because she didn’t think she had four good enough 1,500-meter runners and she wanted to keep everyone fresh for Saturday’s 4x800 (4:10 p.m.).
With the Wildcats out of the 4x1500 — which they won last year en route to a clean sweep of the distance relays — Stanford cruised to the title in 17:27.54.
And even though they didn’t get a chance to beat Villanova after their narrow loss to the Wildcats in Thursday’s DMR, the Cardinal runners were still thrilled to win their first Penn Relays championship since 2006.
“It would have been great to race them again,” Stanford’s Jessica Tonn said. “But for us, we don’t really look right or left at the starting line. It’s just about doing us when we show up.”
The longest of the long jumpers
While the Villanova men fell just short in the DMR and the women sat out the 4x1500, the Wildcats did have a champion crowned Friday as senior Elbert Maxwell won the men’s long jump title.
His jump of 25 feet was just enough to edge North Carolina State’s Jonathan Addison.
Elsewhere in the field events, Penn State senior Darrell Hill defended his men’s shot put title with a throw of 68 feet, 2½ inches — two inches shy of the Penn Relays record.