The Villager Newspaper Online Your Community News – Cleveland's Westshore
For the first time in team history, The Westlake Girls Track & Field team will send a group to the prestigious Penn Relays in Philadelphia this week where they will compete against top teams from across the United States along with several teams from Jamaica and the Bahamas.
The 4×800 team of Senior Co-captains Sydney Peer and Sarah Colman and Juniors Sarah Peer and Ellie Irwin qualified for the race at their first meet of the spring season and just a few weeks ago at the annual Avon Lake Invitational. Sarah Peer also qualified as an individual and will represent Westlake in the 1600.
The Penn Relays is America’s oldest and largest track and field competition. Since 1895, the University of Pennsylvania has hosted the annual track and field event at Franklin Field in West Philadelphia — the country’s oldest college stadium. Relay running – where members of competing teams run a specific distance before passing a baton to another team member – was relatively new when the University of Pennsylvania decided to add a relay race to its annual spring meet. The sport has exploded since then, with many crediting the increase in popularity to the Penn Relays. The Penn Relay attracts approximately 15,000 participants each year including athletes at the high school and college level and over 100,000 spectators.
On their way to qualifying for the Penn Relays, the foursome also set the Avon Lake Invite meet record.
The same foursome also earned a spot to the New Balance Outdoor Nationals after winning the Distance Medley Relay at this weekend’s 67th annual Amherst Comet relays with a time of 12:16.84. The time sets both the Westlake High School record and the meet record previously set by Medina in 2019.
