Westfield 4x400 Team Sets School Record At Penn Relays

PHILADELPHIA—Sautrday was day three of the Penn Relays, and Franklin Field was packed. 54,310 people packed the stands to watch the competitors.  Track enthusiasts would have recognized Usain Bolt, Alison Felix, and Dee Dee Trotter walking around the stadium.  Flags from the USA, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Kenya, the Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas, among others, were wrapped around shoulders everywhere. The Westfield boys took their 4x400m relay to the track in front of all of them.

The anchor of yesterday's 4x100m relay team, Jhakyse Williams took the first leg in Westfield's 4x400m relay team.

"With the first place, it's all about setting the tone for the team, said Williams. "So I felt like I went out pretty well today.  It felt pretty good.  We won our heat again.  It felt good to end Penn this way as well as my high school career.  Basically our only goal was to win.  And 3:20 was the time we set, so running a 3:20 today was good.

Williams' split was 49.0s as he handed off to Brian Henry, who took over the race in the middle of the front pack of boys

"When Jhakyse came around he was in the third lane, and he gave me the baton with a good lead.  There was only about two people around him.  I got the handoff and went out pretty hard, but not too hard, so I could stick with everyone else.  Then going around I got a little bit tangled up in the last 200, got kicked, then I just kicked it out at the end, trying to get a good time.  I was very happy with it."

Henry handed off to Pat Gray, who took off with a clear mission: move into first.

"It was a close race with Brian coming down," said Gray. "Brian got us back into the herd, but there was about four people bunched up.  I knew it was going to be a trafficky hand-off so I was trying to think of how to take it.  First I thought I should stick behind a person, but then I thought about it and figured I should just take the lead and stay in the lead.  I knew that if I had the lead when I passed off to Jon, we had it in the bag."

Gray's strategy worked.  He cruised into the lead early in his leg and Westfield never looked back.  A clean hand-off to Jon Henry and the boys were 400m away from winning their heat.

"All I was really saying to myself was that it was up to me to bring it home and not let us lose," said Henry. "I saw Pat coming around in first, giving us a good lead, so I didn't want to ruin that.  Before I got the baton I was a little nervous, but as soon as I got the baton I just ran for my life like yesterday in the 4x1.  I wanted everyone to run to their potential, and I think we did that.  But I think we can still do better."

Coming down the last straightaway, it was clear that Westfield had taken the heat.  The announcer read their time to the thousands of people who were all cheering as Westfield crossed the finish line.

The Westfield boys now look toward the Meet of Champions, as they will take their relays there.

Other local schools:

Boys 400m Hurdles Championship

Mark Filandro (Indian Hills) 54.97

InSoo Hwang (Ridgewood) 54.49

Boys 4x400m Relay

Cranford (Chris Witwick, Tyler Ainge, Dan Cleary, Jeff Sun) 3:38.40

Hoboken (Jonathan Melero, Yovan Lasso, Julian Palacios, Andrew Mendez) 3:51.65

Ridgewood (Matt Grundy, Juan Llinas, Jon Reimer, InSoo Hwang) 3:25.11

Indian Hills (Cory Crawford, Mike Wasserman, Calvin Knox, Mark Filandro) 3:24.04

Summit  (Matt Espy, Alex Grillo, Ben Raskin, Thomas Chin) 3:31.74

Columbia (Junior Derius (51.0), Eric Bennett (49.4), Franklin Bellamy (51.0), D.J. Roberts (47.9)) 3:19.25

Girls 4x100m Relay Tri-State Championship

Columbia (Whitney Jackson, Jasmine Carter, Ambur Ballew, Kayann Richards) 47.34 2^nd place overall

Boys High Jump Championship

Mark Jones (Summit) 2.09m (6-10.25) 2^nd place overall

Tommy DeVita (Ridgewood) 1.96m (6-5) 9^th place overall

Boys Pole Vault Championship

John Wisener (Ridgewood) 4.35m (14-3.25) 12^th place overall

Boys Long Jump Championship

Corey Crawford (Indian Hills) 7.24m (23-9) 4^th place overall