PHILADELPHIA – Day Two of the 129th Penn Relays took place on Friday, April 25.
Villanova’s day started with the women’s and men’s Distance Medley relays. Sophomore Ajanae Thompson took on the 100-meter hurdles. Villanova’s night was capped off with the 4×400-meter men’s preliminary race where they qualified for tomorrow’s championship.
The men returned to the Penn Relays looking to defend their DMR title from last year. Junior Marco Langon (1200m), Luke Rakowitz (400m), Dan Watcke (800m) and fifth-year Liam Murphy (1600m) made up the relay team.
Langon was the only new addition to the men’s DMR team. The other three were all part of the championship team last year. However, Villanova came up short, finishing fifth with a time of 9:28.14, despite shaving off seven seconds from last year’s championship time of 9:35.90.
The time would have won the DMR in each of the last eight years at the Penn Relays, and it was the ninth fastest men’s DMR in school history.
“The guys ran away from us early on in their earlier legs,” Murphy said. “And it was a lot harder for me to make up that ground.”
In his Penn Relay DMR, Langon ran the first leg of the relay, replacing former Wildcat Sean Dolan, in 2:55.18 to give Villanova around a two-second lead heading into the 400-meter leg.
“Sean Dolan has pretty big shoes to fill, he’s a Jersey guy, grew up within 30 minutes of where I came from, and I looked up to him in high school,” Langon said. “He just wants nothing but the best for you, so I knew I wasn’t gonna do the leadoff leg wrong for him.”
Langon passed the baton off to Rakowitz, who ran slightly slower than his time last year. Rakowitz ran a 48.87 to close out the 400-meter leg of the relay. Watke picked up the 800-meter for his second-career Penn Relay DMR, running his leg of the race in 1:48.87.
Murphy once again anchored the relay and ran a 3:55.24. It was five seconds faster than his time in last year’s Penn Relay DMR.
“It takes four pieces to make the whole puzzle, and I knew today I wasn’t going to let myself give up,” Langon said. “I wasn’t going to hand the baton in anything less than a two-second lead, so I wanted to give Luke [Rakowitz] the best chance to be in a good position and hand it off to Dan. It’s just something you gotta go back reevaluate and not put too much stress on it and go into tomorrow with more confidence.”
The women’s DMR team finished sixth with a time of 11:10.82. The four runners consisted of sophomore Olivia Allen, fifth-year Elizabeth Martell, junior Micah Trusty, and freshman Rosie Shay.
Allen ran the 400-meter leg and reached a personal best split of 54.62. Allen ran the 400-meter leg, running a personal best split of 54.62. She was followed by Trusty on the 800-meter leg at 2:09.26. To close out the relay, Shay anchored in Penn Relay debut and ran a 4:43.39 in her Penn Relay debut.
Thompson finished 12th in the preliminaries of the 100m Hurdles with a time of 13.76, which was 0.16 seconds short of a personal record.
Junior Sal Beretta, sophomore Ethan Walls, junior Jimmy Milgie and junior Ronan O’Neil closed out in the 4×400-meter relay in the College Section Heats. The men ran a 3:13.28 to finish third in their heat.
The top two teams from each heat qualify for the championship, and the seventh spot is given to the next fastest team outside the two teams from each heat. Villanova’s time earned them the final spot in the championship on Saturday, April 26.
Villanova track and field now faces the final day of the 2025 Penn Relays, tomorrow, Saturday, April 26 (FloSports). The highly anticipated 4xMile takes place at 1:05 p.m. and the 4×400 championship is at 5:15 p.m.
