Penn Relays Official Site

EAST STROUDSBURG – Senior Lynn Mayer will go after her second championship in the high jump on Thursday and the men's sprinters will look to defend their Wetzler/PA 4x400 Relay title on Friday as the 117th edition of the Penn Relays tips off at historic Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

Mayer, the women's Eastern high jump champion as a freshman in 2008 and the runner-up the last two years, will be one of the favorites in the field at a venue that produced her career-best mark of 5-9 3/4 last season. She enters Thursday's competition ranked eighth in Division II at 5-8 1/2 and has 22 victories in her last 25 meets.

The five-time All-American will be one of four Warriors, all national qualifiers, who will compete in individual events during the three-day festival. Sophomores Rose Mascoli and Corinne Fitzgerald will run on Thursday in the 10,000m and 3000m steeplechase, respectively, and junior Josh Hontz will compete in the javelin on Saturday.

Mascoli, an NCAA provisional qualifier in the 10K (10th nationally) and an automatic qualifier in the 5K (11th nationally), has set school records in the 3K (9:54.65), 5K (16:36.98) and 10K (35:44.20) so far this season. An All-American during the cross country season, Mascoli will run the 10K for the first time since shattering the school record at Lynchburg to open the outdoor season on March 19.

Fitzgerald enters Penn ranked sixth in Division II in the steeplechase and has lowered her school record twice this season. She ran 11:06.03 at Lafayette on April 2, then dropped her time to 10:43.90 at Bucknell on April 15.

Hontz has posted three straight impressive marks in the javelin and is currently 10th on the national list. He improved his NCAA provisional mark to 210-9 at ESU's All-American Meet last Saturday after throwing 210-5 at Millersville and 209-10 at Bucknell the previous two weeks.

ESU's women – Mayer, Mascoli, Fitzgerald and the 4x400 relay – will all compete on Thursday before the men's relays take center stage on Friday.

Last year, the Warriors had one of the fastest days in school history on Friday at Franklin Field, setting school records in the 4x200 and 4x400 and winning the Wetzler/PA 4x400 for the first time since 1985. Three-quarters of the 4x400 relay returns in seniors Negus Graham and Greg Pammer and junior Ian Melhorn, with freshman Keith Parker-Washington replacing Chris Reddick.

Graham, a three-time All-American, and Melhorn were members of both record-setting relays last season and will both compete in the 4x100 (12:35 p.m.), 4x200 (1:50 p.m.) and 4x400 (5:25 p.m.) on a very busy afternoon at the historic venue.

Graham (21.4), Melhorn (21.4) and seniors Chris Reddick (21.2) and Andrew McCloskey (21.5) ran the fastest time by a Division II school in the field in the 4x200 last year (1:25.37) and took more than two seconds off the 34-year old school record that was set in 1976. Senior Asher Ashfield, ESU's indoor 60m record holder, and Parker-Washington replace Reddick and McCloskey this season.

In the 4x400, Graham's 47.7-second split on the third leg helped the Warriors clock a time of 3:15.39 to take the Wetzler/PA title. Pammer ran a lap of 49.5 on the second leg and Melhorn anchored in 49.2.

The 4x100 relay had the No. 2 time (41.43) among Division II schools last year and was the second alternate for the championship final. Ashfield and Melhorn ran the first two legs on last year's squad and will be joined by Graham, who is moving up to the 4x100 this season, and Parker-Washington. The squad has an NCAA provisional time of 41.17, the best in the PSAC so far this spring.

Senior Jasmine Johnson, the school record holder in the indoor and outdoor 400, leads the women's relay teams that will be comprised mostly of underclassmen. Freshmen Nicole Brown, Colleen Murphy and sophomore Tara Getz are scheduled to run in the 4x400 on Thursday, and Brown, Murphy and fellow freshman Rachel Pierantozzi will join Johnson in the 4x200 on Friday.

The action concludes on Saturday with Hontz in the javelin and the men's 4x800 relay, which will have the school record of 7:44.04 in its sights when it takes the track at 4:25 p.m.

Sophomore Mike Saparito, the PSAC indoor champion in the 800, senior Mahmoud Aldeen and sophomore Amr Aldeen were all on the PSAC champion and record-setting 4x800 relay (7:45.11) during the winter and will be joined by junior Sam Janssen. Saparito and Janssen were on the relay that ran 7:46.91 last year.


Thursday
10:00 a.m. – Eastern High Jump (women) – Lynn Mayer
5:45 p.m. – 4x400 (women)
8:00 p.m. – Championship 3,000m Steeplechase (women) – Corinne Fitzgerald
10:15 p.m. – Championship 10,000m (women) – Rose Mascoli

Friday
12:35 p.m. – 4x100 (men)
1:50 p.m. – 4x200 (men)
2:10 p.m. – 4x200 (women)
5:25 p.m. – 4x400 (men) – Wetzler/PA 4x400

Saturday
12:35 p.m. – College Javelin (men) – Josh Hontz
4:25 p.m. – 4x800 (men)