April 25, 2008
Philadelphia, Penn. – South Carolina’s men’s and women’s 4x200m relays advanced to Saturday’s Championship of America finals on the second day of three days of competition at the 114th annual Penn Relays. The women’s 4x400m relay will also run in the COA finals tomorrow. The meet will be televised live on ESPN2 from 2 – 4 pm on Saturday.
Friday’s attendance was the second highest ever for a Friday with 39,904 fans in the stands.
“We had a good day, not great, but good. We had a good morning with Jason Richardson. Johnny ran well in the 400m hurdles. We are having some good and some bad today. I am not totally disappointed, but not totally happy. We are running against the best in the country. We have two weeks to get ready for the SEC Championship. The men are trying too hard and dropped the baton in the 4x400m relay,” said USC head coach Curtis Frye. “We have three relays running in the Championship of America finals so that’s good.”
Richardson ran the top time of the day to advance to the Championship of America finals in the 110m hurdles with a time of 13.64. He has the fastest time in the NCAA this year at 13.31.
Richardson won his heat of the 400m hurdles at 9 am, but finished as the runner-up based on time. He ran a season-best, NCAA qualifying time of 50.54. Freshman Johnny Dutch finished fourth in the same heat with a time of 51.40, also a personal best, finishing seventh overall. Dutch later finished 10th in the prelims of the 110m hurdles at 14.83.
“I need to run harder the last two. I was going through a lot in the race and at hurdle six I realized no one had passed me yet. I thought – `Did I go out too hard? Am I supposed to be in the lead?’ I’ll use this as a learning experience to run faster next time” said Richardson. “Penn Relays is where championships start. I have to be ready from here on out.”
The defending champion in the 400m hurdles, Jussi Heikkila, was 15th overall with a time of 52.76.
Gabby Glenn made the finals of the 100m with her fifth place finish in the prelims at 11.69. Kyla Brookins (11.71) and Shalya Mahan (11.72) finished fourth and fifth respectively in the same heat.
Johnathan Hancock made the finals of the college 100m Saturday, running a 10.59 – finishing fourth in his heat. Marty Markett finished sixth in his heat of the 100m at 10.82.
The women ran a 44.12 to finish fifth in the 4x100m relay Championship of America. LSU won the race for the 12th time, setting a Penn Relays record at 42.59.
The women’s and men’s 4x200m relay both qualified for the Championship of America finals on Saturday. The women finished second in their heat with a time of 1:35.59 (Bryd, Giles, Mahan and Cross) and the men were also the runner-ups in their heat with a time of 1:24.69 (Flood, Sales, Moore and Jamil James).
In other Penn Relays action: Jason Cook was fifth in the shot put with a toss of 57′ 1.; and Matt Shuler finished 13th in the 13th in the pole vault at 15′ 1.
The men’s 4x400m relay finished fifth in their heat at 3:11.58 and were in second until they dropped the stick on the anchor leg exchange (Keith Hinnant, Jussi Heikkila, Derron Flood, Ray Miley).
Former Gamecock NCAA champion Mechelle Lewis anchored the USA team in the 4x100m relay (43.46) to defeat USA Hurdlers – anchored by another former Gamecock NCAA champion Tiffany Ross-Williams whose team ran 44.39.
