Molly Josephs on an early morning 5k walk! The Girls Varsity track team continued their fine season with an appearance at the 114th running of the Penn Relays, one of the oldest and most historic meets in the country. With runners like former Olympians Carl Lewis, Marty Liquori and Mary Decker having run in past Penn Relays, and attracting runners from more than 60 countries, our girls are getting the opportunity to perform in a stadium with much history. Last year's event attracted over 100,000 spectators over 3 days!

Possibly the toughest challenge for the girls was being at the high school at 5:30 in the morning during Spring break and taking a 3 hour bus trip to Philadelphia. But with the opportunity to run at this prestigious meet they stepped up to the challenge. Preliminary heats were run throughout Thursday, with the championships being run on Friday.

The first race was the 4x800 with Emily Menges, Maddie Adams, Brooke Senken and Michelle Rotondo competing against top US teams, as well as teams from Jamaica. The girls finished fourth in their heat and narrowly missed qualifying for the championship race on Friday. Their time was 9:16.89 - a new school outdoor record, and landed them in 16th place out of the 70 teams running the 4x800. By the way, the US national record was broken by the team that finished in second place, as the Jamaican's took first place with a time of 8:41.92.

Brooke Senken with a solid 3rd leg of the 4x800. Next up was the 4x100, with the quartet of Katy Daly, Lauren Williams, Taryn Schmelzinger and Emily Menges stepping into the blocks and representing Garden City. In an event that attracted schools from all over the country, 283 small schools raced, our girls finished 74th with a time of 51.40 - a very good showing against amazing runners. The top three, and six of the top ten, spots went to teams from Jamaica.

Finishing up on Thursday, it was the 4x400 relay team of Katy Daly, Taryn Schmelzinger, Brooke Senken, and Emily Menges taking on the challengers from across the country. And once again Garden City's foursome ran in the top quartile of the more than 500 teams that competed. They finished with a terrific time of 4:05.42.

Michelle Rotondo runs the anchor of the 4x800. Then early on Saturday morning Molly Josephs competed in the 5000m race walk. And compete she did, finishing 6th overall with a great time of 27:21.28 - faster than most people run a 5k race and a great accomplishment for an eight grader! Congratulations to Molly and the rest of the team that made the trip.

A special thanks goes to the Men's Association for their continued support of the girl's track team this year!

This past Tuesday the girls had their last home quad meet of the season, celebrating senior day and taking on rivals Hewlett, Jericho and Lawrence. And next up is the Seahawk Invitational Meet at Cold Spring Harbor on Saturday.

Emily Menges leads off the 4x800. Maddie Adams runs a strong second leg of the 4x800.