ALUMNI & FRIENDS

ALUMNI & FRIENDS

Today, Thursday April 25 was the opening day of the 128th edition of the Penn Relays. It was a day for the females, particular girls’ high school events. The XLCR Lady Eagles competed in 4 events.

• High School Girls’ Discus Throw Championship – Najhada Seymoure finished second with a throw of 48.08m to earn the Silver Medal. This is an impressive improvement over last year when she was 7th with 45.57m. Congratulations to her and Coach Michael Vassell. A very good lead-off for the Eagles 2024 Penn Relays Campaign.
• High School Girls’ Shot Put Championship – Kahllah Bailey and Altonique James finished 5th & 6th. Good going by these two Lady Eagles who came into the competition ranked 7th & 12th respectively. Kudos to Coach Vassell, Jamaica’s leading throws coach.
• High School Girls’ 4×100 Heats – The Lady Eagles team of Shakira Rhoden, Brennna Brown, Diandra Kelley & Mikela Coombs won their heat comfortably in 47.82 to advance to tomorrow’a High School Girls’ 4×100 International Final, which goes off at 2:10pm local time. Much love to Coach Joseph Small for his deduction and work with these young ladies.
• High School Girls’ 4×400 – The Lady Eagles represented by Brennna Brown, Roneisha Johnson, Diandra Kelley & Mikela Coombs completed 4 laps of the Franklin Field oval in 3:51.81. However this performance was not good enough to get them into tomorrow’s High School Girls’ 4×400 Championship of America (COA) Final. Nonetheless a good effort by the young ladies. They’ll be back; improved and more experienced in 2025.

It was a good day for the XLCR Lady Eagles, notwithstanding the chilly conditions and the blimp in not qualifying for the 4x400mR COA Final. Tomorrow’s appearance in the High School Girls’ 4×100 International Final should cap off a good Penn Relays 2024 outing for the Lady Eagles.

The Eagles make their debut at this year’s renewal of Penns when Renaldino Medwinter competes in the High School Boys’ Long Jump Championship at 9:30am local time, tomorrow. Later in the day the high riding Eagles 4x100mR team will take the track for their heat in the High School Boys’ 4×100 Relay. They will wear bib ‘UK’ in event 329 which is slated to go off at 11:40am.
Meanwhile the Lady Eagles are down to compete in Event 345, The High School Girls’ 4×100 International Finals at 2:10pm.

Tomorrow should see temperatures in Philly to go from a chilly 49? (9?) at the start of the long jump to a sunny 59? (15?) for the Boy’s sprint relay heats.

Attendants at Penns who are desirous of purchasing XLCR Eagles supporter shirts may do so by the Palestra – the U of Penn basketball arena. Please ask for Garth Riley.

Reminder: Please visit the Excelsior Eagles TV YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=excelsior+eagles+tv for up to date videos of the Eagles at Penns.

All pictures supplied by photosbybellamy.com, the official photographer of DASH Athletics.