Men's track competes at famed Penn Relays, Lions Invitational

Thirty-nine thousand, seven hundred eighty-three spectators, live prime-time television coverage and vendor-lined streets are not usually associated with the often glamourless sport of track and field, at least on this side of the Atlantic.

The 109 year-old Penn Relays prove to be the exception. While athletes range from high school-aged to Olympic champions to centenarians, the college races are always highly contested and sure crowd pleasers. The relay events take center stage at this meet, and track powerhouses such as the University of Texas and Louisiana State University make their way to the historic but not particularly fast Penn track, not so much in search of fast times as in search of the prestige that comes with being awarded the Championship of American Penn Relays victor's watch.

Tiger finishers

Princeton's 4x400-meter team placed third in the Heptagonal heat, less than five seconds behind champion Penn, with a time of three minutes, 16.46 seconds. Texas Christian won the invitational heat with a time of 3:05.41.

Competing in the invitational division, Princeton's distance medley team placed ninth out of 14 with a time of 9:42.67. The University of Michigan narrowly won the race with a 53-second last quarter by sophomore Nate Brannen, edging NCAA champion Alistar Cragg of Arkansas.

Junior Jon Kieliszak ran the opening 1200m leg in a time of 2:57, while Nick Willis of the University of Michigan ran a meet record 2:49 1200m leg.

Sophomore Alexis Tingan stepped down from his usual distance of 800m to split an impressive 48.2s in his 400m, while senior Dave Dean clocked a 1:50.5 for the 800m.

Meanwhile, for the anchor leg of one-mile, senior Jon Bell recorded the fastest time of any competitor, at 4:05. The leaders started out adsurdly slow, splitting 2:11 for the first two laps. Bell was able to play catch up with his fast leg, but was only able to hold on for a very respectable ninth-place finish.

"Overall, we were pretty pleased," Dean said of the race.

Individual events

Despite the crowd-drawing relay focus of the meet, individual events were contested, with a number of Tigers being admitted to the elite fields.

Sophomore Mike Weishuhn high-jumped six feet, 8.25 inches to tie for third in the college section, just half an inch behind Army's Rod Manzo.

Sophomore Paul Lyons competed in both the shot and discus. He placed ninth in the college men shot put championship with a throw of 52'11.50", followed by a 15th-place finish in the college men discus throw after heaving the discus 154-02m.

Junior Tim Releford, who has enjoyed an outstanding year to date, placed a disappointing ninth in the college javelin championships, with a mark of 210'6". Brian Chaput of Penn captured the event with a throw of 227'0".

"The conditions were terrible for javelin, what with high winds and driving rain," Releford said. "Weather aside, I was technically off."

Junior Josh McCaughey competed in the invitational section of the men's hammer throw, placing seventh with a mark of 198'2".

Classmate Mark Smith placed first in the college hammer section with a toss of 190'03".

At TCNJ

Given the selective Penn Relays entry acceptances, the majority of the Tigers competed at The College of New Jersey's Lions Invitational in a pre-Heptagonal tune up.

Junior Marcus Ford-Bey captured the triple jump with a mark of 43'05.25". Junior Dave Silver led a 1-2-3-4-5 Princeton sweep in the 5k, with a time of 14:56.44.

Princeton fared well in the other distance races as well. Junior Pete Cioni recorded a time of 3:57.44 in the 1500 for the victory, while senior Bruce Hancock captured the 800m with a time of 1:55.25.