Thanks to a great showing at the Penn Relays, the South Brunswick High School girls track team will be carrying a lot of momentum into the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament.
South Brunswick competed in three events at the Penn Relays, held at Franklin Field in Philadelphia last week.
"The Penn Relays is the largest meet in the country, and one of the most prestigious, with thousands of competitors and fans," South Brunswick Coach Stefan Moorhead noted. "We ran two relays -- the 4x100 and 4x400 -- and both did very well."
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The 4x100 team of Alicia Osley, Mariah Browne, Janae Baker and Rachel Johnson ran a time of 48.62. It was the third fastest time from a team in New Jersey and 27th out of the 586 teams competing.
"Despite the delays (for lightning), the girls persevered and accomplished their goal of making it to the Tri-State final, held on Saturday," Moorhead said. "The Tri-State race is composed of the eight fastest teams from Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, and it was the first time in school history we qualified for that final.
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"Unfortunately our second leg, Mariah Browne, rolled her ankle warming up for the long jump later on Thursday. X-rays were negative, but she was not ready to compete on Saturday, so Lindsay Carbone ran in her place. We placed sixth in the final with a time of 50.91, which was significantly slower than our qualifying time due to some shaky hand-offs. It was still a great experience for them to compete on Saturday at Penn Relays, which is when all the top college teams and elite professional athletes compete."
South Brunswick's 4x400 team of Janae Baker, Joy Spriggs, Alicia Osley and Laura Calderone ran a time of 3:59.92.
"The 4x400 also ran very well," Moorhead said. "Breaking four minutes in the 4x400 in April is a great sign for how fast we can run later in the season at the championships meets. I was happy with how they competed."
Cayla Del Piano ran a 5:11.10 time in the mile.
"She's the first girl in school history to qualify for that race," Moorhead said. "Although she didn't run as fast as she hoped, it was still a tremendous accomplishment for her to qualify for that race. The experience of competing in an individual event at Penn Relays will definitely help her in the future."
In regular season action, South Brunswick defeated Edison, 106-34, on Apr. 26. The win improved South Brunswick to 6-0.
Rachel Johnson (15.9 in the 100 hurdles and 27.7 in the 200) and Mariah Brown (16' 9" in the long jump and 35' 6" in the triple jump) both won two events. Emily Lane (2:37 in the 800), Niky Mateescu (13:18 in the 3200), Lindsay Carbone (8' 6" in the pole vault), Jen O'Laughlin (4' 10" in the high jump), Chloe Hall (35' 2" in the shot), Amber Brown (114' 6" in the discus) and Alyssa McFarlane (99' 10" in the javelin) also won events.
South Brunswick will host the Greater Middlesex Conference championships on May 3-4.
"We have won this meet for five straight years and are obviously hoping to defend our title," Moorhead said. "It won't be easy, but I am confident that if the girls perform like they should, we can make it six in a row."
