PHILADELPHIA – At the Penn Relays on Friday (April 24), the men's distance medley relay squad of Carver Morgan, Gregory Celariste, Daden Grogan, and Kaden Kluth placed fourth in a field of the nation's best, establishing a program record of 9:33.41.

The performance broke a 21-year-old program record for American and was anchored by a 4:00.61 mile from Kluth, the fastest anchor in the field that included Oregon, Villanova, Virginia, and Michigan.

Three of these athletes — Morgan, Grogan, and Kluth — returned to the track on Saturday for the Championship of America 4x800 relay. Led off by Barak Goldstein, the squad broke another program record, running 7:24.64 to place seventh in the championship event.

View the full results here.

Coaches' Corner
"The team had a great weekend up at the historic Penn Relays.," said head coach Sean Graham. "We started off with a solid effort from the women's 4x100 early on Friday afternoon — Zoe, Addie, Lara and Lilia got the baton around in our second fastest time of the year with very smooth handoffs.

"Following that, we had a record breaking performance in the men's Championship of American DMR against an incredible nationally competitive field from across the country. 

"Led off by Carver Morgan in the 1200, he raced a very physical 1200 leg in 2:53, passing off to freshman Greg Celariste having to jump over a fallen competitor and still running a big PR of 47.9 400 leg. He then handed off to freshman Daden Grogan, who ran a solid 1:51 800 leg for us, sticking with Navy at the time, then running away from them off the last curve. We were off the leaders by a good 50 meters handing off to Kaden for the mile. Those leaders began a very tactical last mile in which Kaden carefully caught up to the pack of seven with three of the nation's leading 1500 runners and a handful of other All-Americans. Executing the next two laps confidently, Kaden then kicked hard the last 600-800 meters, chasing down the leaders and dropping the rest of the field to finish fourth, only behind Oregon, Villanova, and UVA by one second. He ran his last 400 in 49 and last 800 in 1:48. Needless to say it was a great last leg, and relay as a whole, as these four put our team with and ahead of the likes of some of the nation's best and broke a 21-year old school record.

"On day two we came back for two more relays, the women's 4x800 college section and men's 4x800 Championship of America. Thy guys, Barak, Daden, Kaden, and Carver, had a pretty good day, breaking that school record as well, but coming up a little short of our performance goal in seventh overall. Odd to feel slightly disappointed in breaking another school record, as that is something to be very proud of in and of itself. We all felt there was a little more to be achieved with that one, but a great performance nonetheless!

"On the women's side, the timing of poor weather coming in at an incredibly inopportune time hindered us a little, I think. Kate, Kara, Charlotte, and Shealyn dealt with pouring rain for their relay, coming in just prior to the gun going off. They finished in 16th with a strong last leg by Shealyn Brochu on the anchor.

"It was a very exciting weekend for the team. We'll now have one more opportunity for competition next weekend for some at Maryland then we'll focus in on the conference championships two weeks after that at Navy."

Next Up
The Patriot League Championships will be two weeks later than last year, allowing for an extra competitive opportunity for the Eagles at the Kehoe Twilight Meet hosted by the University of Maryland (May 1-2).

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PENN RELAYS, AU RESULTS

4x100 College, Women	23. Clark, DiPaolo, Gin, Jones, 48.15
Distance Medley Relay Championship of America, Men	4. Morgan, Celariste, Grogan, Kluth, 9:33.41***
4x800 Championship of America, Men	7. Goldstein, Grogan, Kluth, Morgan, 7:24.64***
4x800 College, Women	16. Riley, Langbaum, Orr, Brochu, 9:22.24

*Top 10 Record Book Mark
**New School Record