A Fine Season Indeed

The NCAA Outdoor Championships just concluded with a 14th place finish by the PSU Women. There were notable All-American performances by Penn State on both the Men's and Women's sides.

Fawn Dorr- 400 meter hurdles, 57.43, sixth place.
Gayle Hunter- Heptathlon, 5797 pts., fifth place.
Clarence Smith- Triple Jump, 52' 6", eighth place.
Bridget Franek- 3000 m Steeplechase, 9:48.57, fourth place.
Ryan Foster- 800 m, 1:47.91, eighth place, (previous 1:46.78 PR in semi-finals).
Women's 4 X 400 m Relay- (Aleesha Barber, Shavon Greaves, Gayle Hunter, Fawn Dorr), 3:30.34, fourth place.

Kudos to Head Coach Beth Alford-Sullivan, who was named the Indoor Big Ten's Women's Coach of the Year. And also a special thank-you for Middle Distance Coach John Gondak for bringing PSU back to being 800 U! Let's hope he promotes our one-of-a-kind PSU is 800 U t-shirts! And I can't wait to find out if any of the coaches can golf next year.

Penn Relays, Again (not Meat Loaf)

An all-out effort will be made next year to entice ALL of the 1985 4 X 800 Penn Relays Record Holders to attend our Reunion and Golf Outing. The record will be 25 years old and although the record may last 50 years, maybe the four of them won't! (Just kidding guys! In 50 years maybe you won't be able to golf is all I meant.)


2009 Penn Relays Highlights:

1. Fawn Dorr 57.76 400M Hurdles for a victory!
2. Women's DMR 11:25.72 - Fourth
3. Karlee McQuillen 169' 8" SecondJavelin
4. Gayle Hunter 20' 3.75" Second Long Jump
5. John Vellenoweth 16' 6.75" First Pole Vault
6. Tanner Evak 225' 6" First Javelin
7. Matt Lincoln ran the opening leg of the DMR for Canada (2:56 for 3/4 mile) in their photo- finish Second place to Kenya.
   

Championship Week

A second and two-third place finishes topped the indoor season for PSU at the NCAA Meet. The Women placed 7th overall, first among the Big Ten.
Gayle Hunter set a school record in the Pentathlon with 4342 points. Ryan Fritz placed third in the high jump to lead the Men.

Others garnering All-American Honors included Bridgit Franek in the 5000 M, and the Women's 4 X 400 M Relay squad with Fawn Dorr, Aleesha Barber, Shavon Greaves and Gayle Hunter. The Men's Distance Medley quartet just missed 8th place by less than 2/10ths of a second.

In the USATF 15 K Championships, James Carney placed 10th in 44:13 and honorary PSU Track Alum Golfer Rebecca Donaghue placed 8th in 51:05.

Addendum: Odds for a hole-in-one at our tourney have been figured at (40 X 4/12,750) or 1 in 78. Good luck, and you can't win if you don't play!

More Honors For Women

Gayle Hunter and Bridget Franek were named Big Ten Athletes of the Week for their exploits at the Penn State National Meet this past weekend.

Gayle won the Pentathlon with 4236 points, more than a hundred points higher than her previous school record! This entailed numerous PR's and NCAA qualifying marks in the individual events.

Bridget Franek set a school record of 9:10.04 in the 3000 meters, breaking a more than 10 year-old record, also qualifying for the NCAA meet. This was the third fastest 3000 run so far this year.

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