Admin (Garrett Zatlin)
Apr 2610 min
Day one of Penn Relays is a wrap! And as we continue to cover day two and day three of the meet on our social media pages, we wanted to offer some analysis and insight on a few of the individual collegiate results that we on Thursday night.
Here is what took place in the individual events at Franklin Field...
We've known for multiple seasons that Rider's Teagan Schein-Becker is a nationally competitive middle distance talent. She thrived in March of 2023, running 2:02 for 800 meters at the IC4A Indoor Championships and later running 4:10 for 1500 meters at the Raleigh Relays.
However, Schein-Becker's performances on the track this past winter and spring, while strong, weren't quite as potent as what she had shown us last year...that is, until she reached the second-half of April.
The Rider veteran threw down another 2:02 (800) mark last weekend at the Virginia Challenge (earning a small PR in the process) and just took home a massive 1500-meter win at the Penn Relays last night!
In a field that featured a variety of underrated talents, Schein-Becker produced a fantastic 4:09 personal best to comfortably earn a two-and-a-half-second win. However, more importantly, Schein-Becker was fantastic late in the race, throwing down an incredibly smooth kick that the field had zero response for.
Schein-Becker's 2023 outdoor track season ended earlier than she likely wanted it to as she failed to get out of the East region. However, this year, the Rider veteran looks just as good -- maybe even better -- and is seemingly peaking later than last year (which is a good thing).
Sure, the Bronco ace was the favorite to win Thursday night's metric mile battle, but taking down top milers such as Kileigh Kane, Florence Caron, Alex Carlson and a breakout performer in Aniya Mosley deserves massive respect. Be sure to keep Schein-Becker on your radar moving forward.
As for Mosley, her 4:12 (1500) was a massive personal best. By how much? Well, what if I told you that, according to TFRRS, her 1500-meter PR prior to Thursday was 4:21 and her mile PR was 4:43? That is A TON of time to drop in one race, even if her 2:04 (800) suggested that she was more fit than that.
And it wasn't just the time that was impressive -- Mosley took down BIG 10 rivals who were battling for conference titles this past winter. That includes Kane, Caron and Carlson. Keep that in mind when the BIG 10 Outdoor Championships come around.
As for Kane (4:13), Caron (4:13) and Carlson (4:15), they had fine races, but Northeastern's Ava Duggan (4:15) and Richmond's Elizabeth Stockman (4:15) did split them up with solid efforts of their own.
Death, taxes and the Eastern Kentucky men boasting some of the best steeplechase talents in the NCAA. Those are guarantees in life.
However, we thought we already knew what the EKU men had on their roster this year as far as steeplechasers were concerned. Highlighted by Abdelhakim Abouzouhir, Pedro Garcia-Palencia, Ahmed Kadri and Keeton Thornsberry, the Colonels were already stacked to the brim with men who could thrive on the barriers.
But then Kristian Imroth toed the line at the Penn Relays on Thursday night. He was a name who, truthfully, we should have given more attention to. After all, he had run 8:42 over the barriers and water pits at the Raleigh Relays earlier this season.
However, for this EKU junior to drop seven seconds, run 8:35 and defeat a very underrated field of established All-American-caliber veterans is a big deal. Guys like NC State's Brett Gardner and Providence's Patrick Thygesen are not at all pushovers. And by having a second race on his resume where he was in the mix with those same men, I think it's time that we start talking about Imroth as a possible backend All-American threat.
More importantly, Imroth covered a fairly large gap that Gardner established late in the race and out-kicked him in the final straightaway. That's tremendous poise and tactical awareness from the EKU talent was able to celebrate across the line.
Even though Gardner didn't win, I still really liked that he was as aggressive as he was. That move almost paid off for him and he still ran an 8:36 PR in the process. The NC State veteran has been a competitive names for a few years now, but Thursday night was the most poised and confident that I have seen him be in a long time -- maybe ever.
Gardner will still need to continue to improve and be able to respond to even better competition in future races. However, with still over a month to go until the national meet, I like the trajectory that this Wolfpack runner is on.
Providence's Patrick Thygesen, Wisconsin's Logan Measner and Michigan's Caleb Jarema took the next three spots (in that order) and all posted times of 8:37.
For Thygesen, this was a solid effort, although he has proven in past races that he can be even better. I did like that he was the one who took over the lead when Northeastern's Alexander Korczynski began to fade, but his jump to the front didn't necessarily break the field, either.
Of course, if the Providence veteran is still running 8:37 in a steeplechase battle that I thought wasn't his best effort, then that may actually be a good thing. Simply building consistency in a race as variable and volatile as the steeplechase isn't easy to do.
As for Measner and Jarema, they both had breakout races, each running 8:37. However, if you look at their past performances, you could see that a result like this was coming for both of these men. Measner had run 8:41 in this event at last year's West Regional Championships while Jarema has posted five personal bests in five different races in his last six efforts. Plus, his cross country accolades showed a clear rise in his fitness.
Both of those men have shown promising momentum as of late. And in a race where they were (mostly) competitive with legitimate All-American threats, you have to imagine that they'll build on these performances in the postseason (as most steeplechasers do).
How this race unfolded was fairly straightforward. Washington's Haley Herberg took over leading duties for a good portion of this race before Penn State's Sophia Toti assumed the lead for a few laps as well. However, it wasn't until the final portions of the race that Northwestern's Ava Earl and Elon's Jette Beermann began to go back and forth.
In the end, Beermann got the narrow edge on Earl, holding off her Northwestern counterpart in the final stretch to secure the win. Both women ran personal bests of 15:42 in the process.
For someone like Earl, we saw this kind of performance coming. In fact, TSR contributor Maura Beattie even predicted that Earl would run 15:41 for the win (she didn't nail it, but gosh was she close). The Wildcat veteran has been quietly really solid over the last year or so and had run 15:46 for 5000 meters at the Raleigh Relays earlier this season.
While she didn't secure gold, the ongoing improvements of Earl have been more than encouraging to see. She has clearly made a leap in her fitness, but she's still improving with each passing race -- that's really hard to do!
Despite the fantastic 5k success that Earl is having, everything on her resume suggests that she would actually be at her best in the 10k. I don't know if we'll see her contest that race for the first time ever this late into the season, but there is clear aerobic strength that would lend well to the monotony and aerobic exhaustion that comes with the 10k.
Of course, Beermann was the one who actually secured the win. And unlike Earl, there weren't many signs on the resume of this Elon stud that she was going to run 15:42 (5k) on Thursday night.
According to TFRRS, Beermann had never run under 16:00 for 5000 meters before. In fact, her prior 5k PR was "only" a time of 16:07 which she ran at the Raleigh Relays earlier this season. Not only that, but Beermann was likely viewed as more of a miler prior to Thursday after running a strong mark of 4:16 for 1500 meters at the Duke Invitational.
Sure, there were subtle aspects of Beermann's season which suggested that she was due for a big-time race. However, to drop so much time and reach a nationally competitive mark en route to a win on a notably large regular season stage is stunning.
Β We still want to see this rising Elon star replicate the caliber of this result in the near future. But at the very least, we do know that her momentum is legitimate. And not only that, but she may have even more untapped upside that we still don't know about. That's maybe the scariest part about Beermann's latest performance...
As for Sophia Toti, the Penn State runner held her own. Yes, Beermann and Earl did get her in the end, but Toti hung tough and still walked away with an impressive 15:44 (5k) PR. That's great validation for a runner who was having a respectable year, but truly reached a new level when she ran 32:57 for 10,000 meters at the Raleigh Relays. And now, with a strong 5k mark under her belt, Toti may be approaching her peak at just the right time.
This was basically a race which featured men from Notre Dame and Eastern Kentucky as well as Hofstra ace, Abraham Longosiwa. And after a bunch of back and forth tactics, it was Fighting Irish veteran Josh Methner taking over with 400 meters to go en route to a 10k win, a time of 28:43 and a tribute to streamer Sketch as his finish line celebration.
The following men -- Abraham Longosiwa (Hofstra), Nikodem Dworczak (Eastern Kentucky), Robert Cozean (Notre Dame), Cooper Schroeder (Florida State) and Evan Brennan (Stony Brook) -- also ran under 29 minutes in this same race.
Methner has been such a challenging name to figure out throughout his time in the NCAA. This is someone who was a cross country All-American during the pandemic-altered winter of 2021 and eventually went on to qualify for the outdoor national meet over 10,000 meters in the spring of 2022.
However, Methner's career has also featured stretches where he doesn't race and there are other times where some of his performances are so much better than others. Thankfully, this Notre Dame veteran is seemingly nearing his prior peak form. A 28:43 mark is only three seconds off of his 10k PR and if he can maintain/build upon this effort, then there is a good chance that Methner will find himself back on the national stage.
As for everyone else, there isn't much to discuss. This is roughly what we expected to see from this field in general, although that doesn't make their performances less impressive. I do, however, believe that Abraham Longosiwa can run even faster. That's because the Hofstra talent ran 28:35 in this event during his time in Kenya.
Admittedly, the women's 10k race didn't leave us with a ton of jaw-dropping performances. Even so, the NC State women made sure to leave us with a few headlines before Thursday night concluded.
That's because true freshman Leah Stephens took home the win in a strong 10k time of 33:09. And while that is certainly a respectable mark, what made that performance even more impressive is the fact that Stephens also ran the 1500 meters a few hours beforehand!
Truthfully, Stephens' metric mile effort wasn't all that exciting, but securing a 10k win on tired legs over a field that had a handful of respectable talents is impressive.
In my eyes, Stephens is still more of a cross country runner than she is a track runner. Her entire freshman year has largely validated that suspicion. Even so, earning a clutch win like this and running as fast as she did should put the Wolfpack rookie into contention for a national qualifying spot in this event once we reach the postseason.
However, maybe more importantly, teammate Kelsey Chmiel made her long-awaited return! The NC State veteran finished runner-up behind Stephens in 33:15 to hold off Georgetown's Maggie Donahue (33:16) as well as Tennessee's Caroline Lyerly (33:19) and Jillian Candelino (33:30).
But...what did we actually learn from Chmiel's first race back since October?
Well, we learned that Chmiel has remained competitive, but she's not necessarily in All-American form...yet. Remember, this Wolfpack veteran owns a personal best of 32:45 for 10,000 meters.
Yes, that's still 30 seconds out from what she ran on Thursday, but for someone as talented and as experienced as Chmiel who still has a month to go before the East Regional Championships, her PR may not be completely out of reach this spring.
And if she's able to run this well in what was the rustiest of rust-busters, then what can she do in late May and early June? I've learned over the years not to doubt Chmiel and unbelievably, despite all that she's gone through, I'm not prepared to take her out of All-American conversation yet.
Did anyone see how good the Stony Brook men were on Thursday night? Collin Gilstrap won the 1500 meters in 3:42, Evan Brennan was the last man under 29 minutes for 10,000 meters and Carlos Santos ran a very strong time of 8:40 in the steeplechase! Coach Andy Ronan should be thrilled with how his Seawolf men performed last night, that was some all-around impressive racing. Gilstrap in particular looks like he could legitimately be national-caliber standout a few years down the line.
Penn's Olivia Morganti secured the win in the women's steeplechase. The Quaker ace was the only woman in the field to run under 10:00 in the event, clocking a mark of 9:57. Don't be surprised if Morganti makes it to the national meet this year. She may also end up being a sneaky-great graduate transfer pickup for a Colorado program that's been in need of greater scoring on the grass.
A 3:43 mark for 1500 meters may not look exciting, but I do like that Villanova's Devon Comber is building consistency. He unleashed a big kick at the end of this race that led me to believe that he could run considerably faster.
The men's 5000 meters was highlighted by North Carolina's Will Coogan, Youngstown State's Hunter Christopher and North Carolina's Patrick Anderson. That trio went 1-2-3 and clocked 5k times of 13:52, 13:53 and 13:53, respectively. However, the story goes much deeper than that. That's because both Coogan and Anderson are now a little over a year removed from being in a severe car accident -- one that was nearly fatal. So while Thursday's results may not seem all that exciting on paper, their comeback story most certainly is.