It was a cool and blustery morning last month on the opening day of the 118th Penn Relays in Philadelphia as Edwin Allen High School of Jamaica won the first of two qualifying heats in the girls’ large-school 4 x 800m relay. Allen, part of the mighty Jamaican entry at Penn, was the event’s defending champion with a blistering time of 8:39.72 from last year. That was a shade better than 2:10 per girl. Most college teams cannot run that fast.
Could any American high school team dare to run with the Allen girls, let alone try and defeat them?
Enter Fayetteville-Manlius, winner of that morning’s second qualifying heat. The Stotans from upstate New York had captured the girls’ 4 x 800m at the indoor nationals in 8:58.18 at the New York Armory in March. It was assumed then that Fayetteville would switch back to the distance medley for Penn, to defend its 2011 title in that event. Instead, seeking new challenges, coach Bill Aris entered the girls’ 4 x 800m at Penn for the first time.
After all, with victories in the last six Nike Cross Nationals championships, and amassing any number of track honors, who was left for F-M to race?
The Jamaicans of course. Call it Fayetteville’s first international test, and probably its greatest challenge yet. Allen was coming off the Jamaican nationals, winning the girls’ team title. Fayetteville, in keeping with the American timetable, was in mid-season form. Aris said the girls had strength but lacked zip.
And while the Philadelphia setting would seem to have favored the American contenders, the Jamaicans were, in effect, the home team. With thousands of rabid fans to root them on, the Jamaican high school teams owned Franklin Field. When I asked the Allen coach Michael Dyke what he’d thought of running against Fayetteville, he looked puzzled. I re-phrased the question, asking if he was familiar with the team and its incomparable record.
Sischo, now a Providence-bound senior, had anchored the team at indoor nationals and was given anchor duty again in the Penn qualifying heat, which Fayetteville won comfortably in 9:04.21. Allen took its heat in 8:58.51, virtually the equal of Fayetteville’s indoor nationals’ time. At the Jamaican nationals, Allen had run 8:57.06, so, on paper at least, it looked like a toss-up.
But guts aside, Sischo, as well as her teammates, had never run a heat and final of a 4 x 800m. Another first for Fayetteville in a weekend of firsts. Aris had his hands full.
After lacking a proper warm-up and standing around in the morning chill to meet Penn’s hurry-up-and-wait “paddock” system of clerking in for races, Fayetteville ran tight in the heats. As Penn regular Bill Cosby huddled on the track’s infield in a winter coat, Fayetteville leadoff Heather Martin, free of her winter injury, fought the opposition and the wind for position en route to a sluggish 2:18.6 split. On the second leg, Katie Brislin, the only real half-miler of the F-M group, broke the race open in 2:12.4. Cross-country stars Jillian Fanning (2:17.4) and Sischo (2:15.8) brought the Stotans home with a full straightaway margin.
Allen won its heat by 20 seconds. As with Fayetteville, the Allen lead-off, Sanikee Gardner, struggled to a 2:18.7 split. At the hand-off, Allen was 2nd, 20 meters back. But Desreen Montague ripped off a 2:07.7 and Allen had the race in the bag. Carla Thompson (2:17.7) and Marleena Eubanks (2:14.4) completed the line-up.
Montague’s time came as a surprise to the track-wise crowd. She had run 2:13.16 in the Jamaican championships. Now she looked like a potential successor to the team’s 2011 senior star, Ristananna Tracey, who’d clocked 2:03.17 on the winning relay and was now a Puma-sponsored professional. What most fans, as well as those in the Fayetteville camp, hadn’t known was that after the Jamaican nationals, Montague, 19, had run 2:03.18 at another meet in Kingston.
Thus, coach Dyke’s cool confidence had backbone to it. Aris, meanwhile, was edgy. While the two men differed in personality, and coaching orientation, each had to work some delicate strategy to determine the best line-up sequence for the final.
Would the 1-2-3-4 orders remain the same? Were changes necessary?
While a 4 x 100m line-up revolved around turn-vs.-straightaway specialists and the finer points of getting the stick around, and a 4 x 400m almost always had the fastest runner on anchor, the 4 x 800m was, to an extent, personality-driven. Which girl had her head together? Which girl had marshaled her emotional energy? Which girl, on this day, was the gutter-outer?
Then, in a team discussion, Aris proposed switching the two Katies—moving Sischo to 2nd leg and Brislin, a junior who’d looked the best, to anchor. “I felt we needed more firepower on the back end,” said Aris.
The Jamaicans made a similar move, switching their first and third girls. Leadoff Gardner moved to third leg; Thompson moved to lead-off. Coach Dyke said that Gardner, a 17-year-old junior, did not like running in a crowd from the gun. Brushing shoulders with other runners unnerved her.
It turned out to be a good move for Allen. In the Friday final, the second day of the three-day extravaganza, the opening leg of the girls’ 4 x 800m final saw a lot of pushing for position. Martin had trouble finding a rhythm. “I got stepped on, elbowed. I was very close to falling,” she would say later.
Martin and her Fayetteville teammates, typically far ahead of the opposition, were used to having the track to themselves. Now, on the lead-off, Martin had to fight for space. It was not her best suit and she pretty much repeated her run from the heats, clocking 2:18.5. Thompson ran 2:16.7 for Allen, giving the Jamaicans a 15-meter advantage at the first hand-off.
On the second leg, Sischo also matched her qualifying heat run—exactly—with another 2:15.8. Well ahead, Allen’s Montague did not have to burn a 2:03 or anything close. Her 2:10.5 was plenty, and on the next exchange Gardner, with no one intruding on her space, had close to 50 meters to work with. And she would get the better of Fanning, 2:16.5 to 2:17.2.
The Allen team, while slower than last year, was still a piece of work. Each girl went out hard as though running a 400m, hung on through the 600m and, even while slowing on the home straight, maintained form to the pass. It was classic Jamaican style: come and get me.
On the anchor, Brislin, taking a cue from the opposition, sped a 61-second first lap, but there was no denting the Allen lead. Eubanks flew out to 57 and change, finishing in 2:09.3 as the Jamaicans triumphed in 8:52.97. With Brislin’s team-leading 2:12.7, Fayetteville placed 2nd, about 70 meters behind. The Stotans’ time of 9:04.22 was almost identical to its qualifier.
“There’s nothing wrong with 9:04 in April,” said Aris.
There’s no crying at the Penn Relays.