This past weekend, the AU men's track team headed to its most competitive meet thus far, the 113th Penn Relays in Philadelphia, Pa.
"We were accepted into all three championship races [DMR, 4 x Mile and 4 x 800m] which is a great honor," head coach Matt Centrowitz said to Aueagles.com. "But due to some illnesses and injuries [we] just [went] to race the B section of the DMR and the 4 x Mile Championship."
The team began competing on Thursday in Philadelphia, running the Distance Medley Relay (DMR). Runners Brian McCabe, Alex Caudana, Dustin Emrani and Carlos Jamieson competed against 20 other teams in the college sections.
The Eagles started off strong with McCabe. The junior led the 1200m leg, however, as he rounded the last 200m, he slowed down, bringing the handoff time to 3:07, just a few seconds short of the lead.
Caudana, the next in line, ran a strong 400m who handed the baton off to senior Dustin Emrani to run his 800m.
Carlos Jamieson anchored the team in the final leg. Jamieson struggled and brought the team to ninth place, and a final time of 10:04.40. The score was strong enough to place fifth in the AU record books.
The following day the AU Eagles competed amongst the best runners from Arkansas, Michigan, Georgetown, Oregon, Wisconsin, Iona and Texas in the 4 x mile. The 4 x mile team was a solid team consisting of Awit Yohannes, Brendan Fennell, Conor Lanz and Steve Hallinan.
Senior Awit Yohannes led the team off in his first major relay leg in his career. Yohannes finished his mile in 4:09.5, only seconds behind the leading team.
Brendan Fennell brought the Eagles closer to the finish as he ran the second leg in 4:02.3, running the fifth-fastest overall in the race, and the fastest mile split time at Penn by any AU runner ever.
As the top six teams were running within a second of each other Fennell tossed the baton over to senior Conor Lanz who ran a 4:10.6 mile. Lanz tried to hold on to fourth place but proved unsuccessful as he handed the baton to Hallinan as AU took hold of sixth.
Junior Steve Hallinan ran the baton to the finish line with a 4:04.7 mile, bringing the Eagles into fourth as he rounded the last 600m. Unfortunately, the five second gain the junior had made fell short as Michigan's anchor passed Hallinan in the last few steps of the race, bringing AU to fifth-place overall in the race.
The team finished with an overall time of 16:27.14, almost seven seconds faster than the previous school record from 2006. Its fifth place title ties with the 2003 team as the schools best 4 x mile finish at the Relays.
The AU men's track team now heads to the Patriot League championships at Lehigh next weekend beginning on Friday.
