The Penn Relays, the oldest track meet in the United States, have been hosted annually at Philadelphia’s Franklin Field since 1895, 67 years before the founding of today’s Stony Brook University campus.
But this week at the 2017 iteration of the races, Seawolves made their mark.
The Stony Brook track and field team’s top finish came on Thursday via the second place women’s distance medley relay, with a foursome of junior Tiana Guevara, sophomore Holly Manning, sophomore Melissa Riback and sophomore Annika Sisson finishing in 11:36.07.
Sisson, who was first team all-America East in the fall cross country season, anchored in a blistering mile time of 4:47.97 to bring her team from eighth to second, losing only to the University of Oklahoma.
Senior runner Christine Eisenberg took fourth place in a field of 48 participants in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, the event that the Hauppauge native ran in the 2017 NCAA Championships.
Eisenberg set a personal best of 10:09.45 to narrowly edge Jessy Lacourse, an athlete from Quebec’s Laval University by two-tenths of a second at the line.
The women’s 4×400-meter relay team set a Stony Brook record in a time of 3:50.73. Junior Dara Smith ran the last leg of a group that also included junior Shanee Grant, sophomore Chinque Thompson and freshman Mary Chimezie.
The Seawolves women’s 4×200-meter relay finished in 19th with a time of 1:40.23, while the 4×100-meters came in 27th, in 47.11 seconds.
Juniors Michael Watts and Danny Connelly were the only individual competitors from Stony Brook’s men’s team; both ran in the 5,000-meters on Thursday.
Watts placed 18th of 91. His time of 14:20.74 was the best of his season and just two seconds slow of his career best, which was attained at last season’s IC4A regional championships. For Connolly, his 27th-place finish clocked in at 14:30.58, a personal record.
The Stony Brook men’s distance medley relay team crossed the line ninth out of 26, in a time of 9:57.65. Freshman Vann Moffett ran the crucial anchor mile for the Seawolves in 4:11.68. Moffett was joined on the relay by freshman Kyle Kelly, freshman Randy Maldon and senior Alex Lopresti.
The historic meet was the Seawolves’ final competition of the regular season before the America East Championships, hosted by the University of New Hampshire, take place next weekend.
