The expression ‘when it rains, it pours’ thankfully didn’t describe the weather as we dodged Friday and Saturday’s storm bullet. It did, however, describe the injury count. After a solid Penn Relays (49.22 4×4 anchor) Chase Bethea (300H) crashed into the 7th hurdle, barely cleared the 8th, dragged himself across the finish and went down grabbing his hamstring. At this writing, his status looks doubtful for the rest of the season. We’ll see but, with Isaiah Marc already sidelined, both the 4×4 and 4×1 relays as well as any State aspirations are in serious jeopardy. The rest of the meet was lackluster at best with only one 1st place (Lee – pole vault), four 2nds (long jump, 300H, 4×8 and 1600), no 3rds and having to scratch the 4×1. Soph Jaylen Foster, although not medaling, continues to improve. After a season ending injury indoors, he hit PRs in both 100M 11.29 and 200M 23.71.
Got to give props to Rowan Aten. After Chase’s injury, he moved to the anchor spot on the 4×4 and knocked a whole second off his previous best with a 52.22 split.
North Penn dominated the night with five 1st, five 2nd, and seven 3rd place finishes.
Save for our performance, the meet was a big success. It went off without a hitch, the weather was perfect, and coaches were complimenting us as they were leaving the stadium.