6:10 p.m.: The Quakers finished second after a good comeback in the men’s Heptagonal 4×400m relay. In second to last place after the first two legs, Ben McKean and Sam Shepherd worked to close the gap and Penn finished in 3:16.14.  Cornell, who won the race in 3:14.65, was out of reach after opening up a decent lead.

5:30 p.m.: In the college men’s Championship of America DMR, Villanova’s Matthew Gibney provided an exciting finish. On the last leg of the 1600m, he reeled in Arkansas, which led for most of the race, to give the Wildcats the win in 9:30.81.

It was the first Villanova victory in the event since 2001. Texas had won the previous three years. Jake Morse of the favored Longhorns made a move to close in on Villanova and Arkansas with just over 400 m to go, but couldn’t maintain the pace, giving the Longhorns a third place finish.

Running in the final heat of the DMR, Penn’s men clocked a 10:09.38, good for a 17^th place finish overall.

I also just heard that the Tennessee women’s 4×1500 time of 17:08.34 is a new world record.

Some afternoon highlights:

The Penn women took a respectable 5^th in the 4x 1500m relay and set a new school record at 18:11.87. The Sarah Bowman-anchored Tennessee team set a new college record in the 4 x 1500, finishing in 17:08.34.

For Penn, Anna Aagenes went out fast, running a 4:26.6 split to keep the Penn squad near the pack. The Villanova, Georgetown, Tennessee and Washington runners broke off during the second leg, leaving Penn’s Kinjal Parikh and Wake Forest’s Merry Placer to duke out the fifth and sixth positions. Penn’s Leah Brogan open up a lead on Wake Forest and freshman Laura Steel ran the last leg without any threats of being overtaken.

In the men’s 4×200m, the Penn squad of Alan-Michael Hill, Julian Domanico, Willie Harris and Sam Shepard finished second in their heat and 31^st overall. Penn’s women’s 4×200 squad finished 32^nd with a time of 1:39.42.

Vere Tech of Jamaica won the 4×100 Girl’s Championship of American, after seeing close competition from the girls of Eleanor Roosevelt (Md). This was the15th time Vere Tech has won this event.

Good Morning (or almost afternoon) from Franklin Field, the site of the 115th Penn Relays. I’ll be here throughout most of the day, periodically posting updates. Please feel free to add your own comments or let me know if there is an event you’d particularly like to hear about.

Right now there’s about another half hour of high school boys 4 x 100 meters heats. Later today, though, I’m looking forward to the college women’s 4×1500 Championship (Tennessee looks to add on to its DMR championship yesterday; Penn is competing as well), the shuttle hurdles (a sort-of unique event, as the runners run at each other and each leg is the opposite direction from the one before it), as well as the college men’s DMR.

As the weeks before graduation tick down, maybe some seniors have compiled a college “bucket list” of sorts. Well, here’s an item to add to it: being able to say that you ran in the Penn Relays.

You don’t need to be a member of the track team or have a sub-10 second 100 meter time. Nope, you just need to be able to run three miles — at any pace. Held on April 19th, the Penn Relays Distance Classic is an open race, either a 5K or 20K for the more ambitious. It starts and ends at Franklin Field, with the 3.1 milers turning around at the Art Museum. What better way to recover from fling…

You probably saw it hoisted on high during the parade on Broad Street, but tomorrow is your chance to see the World Series Trophy up close. The festivities begin at 2 p.m., with the trophy arriving at 3 p.m. Bring your Penncard because the event is apparently not open to the public

Don’t be surprised if you see Tommy McMahon back on campus next fall. After McMahon missed the 2007-08 season with an injury, he paced out his courses so he could return to Penn for a fifth year, according to his father. However, since he’s no longer on the basketball team, McMahon will still be back at Penn  – keeping  content playing intramural ball.

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After practice yesterday, coach Glen Miller gave his thoughts on junior Justin Reilly. After undergoing surgery for a double hernia, Reilly has seen limited time this year but earned one start when Miller decided to shake up the lineup against Cornell.

“He practices everyday, but he practices on a limited basis,” Miller said.  ”He’s never really been through a full practice all out. He does as much as he can for as long as he can.”

Miller hopes he will “be at 100 percent” for next season, but acknowldeged the healing process can take “from that surgery two years to get back.”

ORLANDO, Fla., — After the Central Florida game, Glen Miller confirmed that senior Tommy McMahon is no longer on the team. Miller also said that sophomores Andreas Schreiber, suffering from a shoulder injury, and Darren Smith, out since last season with a broken kneecap, will be out for the remainder of the season and that the status of senior Aron Cohen is still up in the air as he undergoes testing.

On McMahon: “He just had a lot to overcome with his injuries and things and at this point, it was just tough for him to get into a situation where he could help the team.”

On Schreiber and Smith: “Schreiber resumed practice and dislocated his shoulder again so he’s going to go ahead and have surgery. Darren Smith … all indications were that he was going to resume practice and get past one final hurdle which was an x-ray … and Darren felt pretty good, but the x-ray showed that he had taken a step backwards. So he’ll be lost for the rest of the season also.”

On Cohen: “Aron Cohen, he’s got a problem with his heart and the tests are ongoing, so we don’t have a conclusive finding yet.”

The men’s hoops schedule has been officially released by the athletic department. Here’s the slate:

Nov. 9 vs. DREXEL, 7 p.m.
Nov. 11 at Loyola (Md.), noon
Nov. 17 vs. HOWARD, 5 p.m.
Nov. 20 vs. THE CITADEL, 8 p.m.
Nov. 23 vs. VIRGINIA, 7 p.m.
Nov. 24 vs. SETON HALL/NAVY, 7 p.m.
Nov. 28 at Lafayette, TBA
Dec. 1 at Villanova, 7 p.m.
Dec. 4 vs. NORTH CAROLINA, 7 p.m.
Dec. 8 at Monmouth, TBA
Dec. 20 vs. ELON, 7 p.m.
Dec. 29 at Florida Gulf Coast, TBA
Jan. 2 at Miami (Fla.), TBA
Jan. 5 vs. NJIT, 7 p.m.
Jan. 15 vs. LA SALLE, 7 p.m.
Jan. 19 vs. SAINT JOSEPH’S, 7 p.m.
Jan. 23 at Temple, 7 p.m.
Feb. 1 vs. HARVARD, 7 p.m.
Feb. 2 vs. DARTMOUTH, 7 p.m.
Feb. 8 at Columbia, 7 p.m.
Feb. 9 at Cornell, 7 p.m.
Feb. 12 vs. PRINCETON, 7 p.m.
Feb. 15 vs. BROWN, 7 p.m.
Feb. 16 vs. YALE, 7 p.m.
Feb. 22 at Dartmouth, 7 p.m.
Feb. 23 at Harvard, 7 p.m.
Feb. 29 at Yale, 7 p.m.
March 1 at Brown, 6 p.m.
March 7 vs. CORNELL, 7 p.m.
March 8 vs. COLUMBIA, 7 p.m.
March 11 at Princeton, 7 p.m.

The Penn Athletics Department announced today that Francis Vaughn, the Quakers’ women’s golf coach, will also assume the head duties of the men’s program as well.

It’s not a new situation for Vaughn; he coached the men from 1996-2002. And heading both programs isn’t new for him either. He coached the women as well from 2000-2002, before moving to hold just the women’s job.

He takes over a men’s group that won the Ivy League Championship last year.

No other Ivy League golf program has this structure. Earlier in the summer, I spoke with coaches from other DI schools that hold the reins over both programs and they noted that the biggest challenge was coordinating both tournament schedules to avoid too many men’s and women’s conflicts.

Penn’s schedules, released last week, have two of four tournaments at different locations on the same weekends.

From Sept. 21-22, the men will be in New York, while the women will be at Princeton that same weekend. October 6 is the women’s ECAC championship in Virginia and the men will be competing in the Delaware Invitational at Delaware Park from Oct. 6-7. In the last weekend of fall competition, both teams will be in the Lehigh Invitational.

Also announced was the hiring of former volunteer coach Chad Perman as an assistant coach for both the men’s and women’s teams.

This morning, USA Basketball announced its final roster for the team that will represent the US in the Pan American games later this month.

The squad, headed by Villanova coach Jay Wright (who did not make the final roster selections himself), includes a couple of guys with local connections. Villanova guard Scottie Reynolds and UNC guard Wayne Ellington, formerly of Episcopal Academy in Merion, Pa, made the final 14. St. Joe’s forward Ahmad Nivins was on the trials roster, but didn’t make the last cuts.

Click on the link above for audio from the players and more information. The Pan Am basketball games will be played in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from July 25-29.

While you may have watched the American League notch its 10th straight win, there was other All-Star action right in town tonight. I was at the Rbk-U All-Star game, which brought to a close the five-day camp that drew over 100 of the nation’s top high school hoops players. Held at Philadelphia University, this was the inaugural year for the camp, the reincarnation of Sonny Vaccaro’s ABCD camp after he pulled out earlier this year.

I got a look at someone who will most likely match up against the Quakers in years to come. Maalik Wayns, who made a verbal commitment to attend Villanova last month, started at point guard for the “Finish” All-Star group. Wayns, a junior at Roman Catholic HS, was one of the four Philadelphians to participate in the camp. Granted, it was the all-star game, but it looked like the 5′9 guard was having an off night. I watched as a pair of three-pointers clunked off the rim on the way to a one-for-seven performance in almost ten minutes of play. He also had one steal and one turnover. (Edit: Apparently I missed the show earlier this week; I found out via an Inquirer article this morning that Wayns played the all-star game with a groin injury) However, in a game earlier in the week, Wayns did put up 10 points and dish out 5 assists.

In the camp championship game earlier in the evening, another local player was on the court. Andrew Randell of Communications Tech had two points on one-for-six shooting and six rebounds. Randell’s “Shaun Livingston” team would hit the century mark in an easy 100-81 victory over the “Marvin Williams” squad to take the championship.

There was a lot of talent out there (it was a like a mini-slam dunk contest) and with representatives from Villanova, Ohio State, Virginia, La Salle and Duke and others in attendance, one has to wonder where these high schoolers will end up.

For the first time ever a high school boys 4×100 team broke 40 seconds at the Relays as St. Jago of Jamaica sprinted to a 39.96 finish with Yohan Blake as the anchor.

In USA vs. the World events earlier in the afternoon, the Americans dominated the track. The USA Red men took the 4×100 in 38.35 and the women finished in 42.87 with Lauryn Williams anchoring.

Former Quakers Sam Burley and Courtney Jaworski each ran the third leg of the Olymic Development DMR for USA Blue and the All Star team, respectively. The All Stars pulled out the victory over USA Blue in 9.29:44, the first time an All Star team has won an event at the Relays.

After the race, Jaworski, running at the Relays for the first time after graduating last year, said that “not wearing the stripes was awkward”, referring Penn’s uniforms. In a bit of nostalgia, he also said he’d love to put on those stripes and run for Penn again. He mentioned that running against Burley, who Jaworski has trained with, was “more fun than competitive.”