Men's Relay Team Runs at Penn Carnival, Maven & Wersan Qualifiy for ECAC's at Lions Invitational

Ewing, N.J. - The St Joseph's track and field team had a whirlwind weekend as the men's 4x400m relay team competed at the prestigious Penn Relays on Friday evening then turned around joining the rest of the team to compete at the TCNJ Lions Invitational in Ewing, New Jersey.

Teams from across the world, from high school to olympians, compete at Franklin Field every year at this time in the Penn Relays.  St Joseph's ran it's men's 4x400m relay of Mario Mayen, Kevin Sanders, Jon Afanador, and Brian Wersan who had already qualified for the ECAC meet in May in this event. 

Aside from Sanders, this was the first experience for each relay member at the famed Penn Relay Carnival.  Mayen lead the heat off running hard from the gun in lane eight, not letting anyone break the stagger on him splitting a 49.7 second lap (his first time under 50 seconds this year).  Sanders received the baton and when he hit the back straight was in third place.  With a strong kick at the end was able to hand off to Afanador in second place.  Challenged quickly by two other teams, he fought hard but was passed on the turn.  Wersan received the baton and bared down to catch the runners who were just ahead.  Despite a valiant effort, the teams finished just ahead with St Joseph's finishing fifth in their heat, only a second and a half off the school record set last week.

Arriving late Friday night the foursome met up with the team for the bus ride back to Ewing for the Lions Invitational.  At that event, Ashley Arquer nearly beat the SJC school record in the 100m by .09 seconds.  Caitlyn Ryan won her heat by a large margin running the 1500m in 5:09.92.

The highlights of the meet came when Mayen running the 400m placed 6th overall and broke 50 seconds for the second time over the weekend with an ECAC qualifying time of 49.97 seconds.  Wersan ran the 800m and was able to place second overall, also qualifying for the ECAC meet in a time of 1:55.11.

Both Mayen and Wersan are members of the 4x400m and 4x800m relays teams already competing at ECACs.  The culmination of the year will be this coming weekend as St. Joseph's will compete at NJACs for its final team competition on May 3-4 as they return to Ewing.