FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
S-97-05-06
Wednesday, April 27, 2006

Elizabethtown Athletes to Compete at Penn Relays Carnival

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. --- Elizabethtown College will be sending several entries to compete at the prestigious Penn Relays Carnival from Thursday, April 27 to Saturday, April 29. The women’s 4x400m relay team of Tina Bucci (North Wales, PA/North Penn), Katelyn John (Camp Hill, PA/Cumberland Valley), Nicole Murphy (Hatboro, PA/Hatboro-Horsham) and Erin Lichti (Shickley, NE/Shickley Public) will be Etown’s first entry to compete at 5:15 p.m. Thursday in event #59. Kevin Clark (Horsham, PA/Hatboro-Horsham) will compete in the men’s pole vault at 10:00 a.m. Friday in event #302. The women’s 4x200m relay team of Bucci, John, Lindsey Oliver (State Line, PA/Greencastle-Antrim) and Lichti will compete at 1:55 p.m. Friday in event #135. The men’s 4x400m relay team of Tyson Evensen (West Sand Lake, NY/Averill Park), Patrick Donovan (South Pasadena, CA/St. Francis), Jason Mastroianni (Macungie, PA/Emmaus) and Drew Graybeal (Sykesville, MD/Glenelg) will compete at 5:30 p.m. Friday in event #170. The men’s 4x800m relay team of Evensen, Donovan, Brandon Bear (York, PA/East York) and Graybeal, with Greg Wetzel (Warrington, PA/Central Bucks East) serving as an alternate, will compete Saturday at 4:30 p.m. in College Section 1 of event #264.

In the women’s 4x400m, Etown’s 2006 squad ran 4:00.92 at Bucknell, and the Blue Jays are the two-time defending champions of the MAC/Centennial 4x400m at the Penn Relays. The line-ups and orders of those winning relay teams were: Betsy Burroughs ’05, Lichti, Kristin Lander ’05, and Carrie Kerna ’04, which won in 4:00.00 in 2004, and Burroughs, Murphy, Katie Garner, and Lichti, which won in 3:59.60 in 2005. Said Etown head coach Chris Straub, “We look to defend our title for the third straight year, thus earning our third coveted Penn Relays championship plaque. We will also be chasing the NCAA Division III Championship provisional qualifying time of 3:58.00.”

In the college men’s pole vault, All-American sophomore Clark, who finished fourth at the 2006 NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, will aim to surpass his outdoor season best of 16’4-3/4,” which currently places him third on the NCAA Division III national rankings and was a facility record at Bucknell when he won the pole vault competition there April 15.

The same line-up competing at Penn in the women’s 4x200m relay ran a school record 1:45.57 at the 2006 Raleigh Relays March 25. “All four legs averaged 26-point at that time,” said Straub, “and they aim to get a new school record with senior Erin Lichti determined to run sub-26 seconds on the anchor leg.” The women’s 4x200m relay team also won that race at Middle Atlantic Conference Indoor T&F Championship in a time of 1:47.55.

The men’s 4x400m relay team features no seniors and some new faces to the line-up that won the traditional “Coach Pop Haddleton Section” at the Penn Relays in 2005. Their time of 3:18.45 easily won the race last year with the line-up of Darren DeAngelis (Basking Ridge, NJ/Ridge), Donovan, Mike Bauer (Pottstown, PA/Pottsgrove), and Graybeal. This year’s relay team has already gone 3:19.61 at the Bucknell Outdoor Classic April 15 and features Evensen, Donovan, Mastroianni, and Graybeal. According to Straub, Graybeal anchored that day in a fast 48.0-second leg to blow past Lehigh University and catch host Bucknell in the home stretch. Etown finished second to Bucknell in a photo finish. The group also hopes to crack the NCAA Division III Championship provisional qualifying standard of 3:17.30. The current school record in the event is 3:16.25 run at the Elizabethtown Spiked & Psyched Last Chance Meet in May 2005.

Finally, Etown looks to save the best for last as Saturday features the men’s 4x800m relay team. This is a much anticipated race for the Blue Jays that features three All-Americans. Evensen is an All-American in both the 800m and distance medley relay (1600m leg) at the 2006 NCAA Division III Indoor T&F Championships and has already run 1:51.81 in the 800m this year. Graybeal has also achieved All-American status by virtue his 800m leg on this year’s DMR team that finished sixth at the national indoor championships held St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is currently on the national list in the outdoor 800m having run 1:53.10 at Princeton last Friday night. Donovan, another All-American, was seventh at the 2005 NCAA Division III Outdoor T&F Championships in the 800m, and he ran the opening 1200m leg of the DMR at the 2006 indoor championships. The final leg will either be Wetzel, a senior, or Bear, a first-year student. At the Raleigh Relays March 25, the team of Evensen, Donovan, Bear, and Graybeal ran the event in a school record of 7:41.36, finishing third behind the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. They beat teams from Georgetown University, University of Virginia, James Madison University, Boston College, LaSalle University, and the University of Louisville. They will not run in the featured Championship of America section, but they will move up from Section 2, which Etown ran in last year, to Section 1 in 2006.