Sports
Harriton, Lower Merion Track Teams Shine in the Rain
Despite constant rain and wind, Harriton and Lower Merion competed in Saturday's annual relay invitational at Great Valley.
Few spectators would have called rainy and windy Saturday a beautiful day for a track meet at Great Valley High School in Malvern. No onlookers smiled under their umbrellas while standing in the puddles accumulating on the track's cement perimeter.
The athletes at the R. Joseph Kellerman Great Valley Relays, however, were not thrown off by the brutal April attitude of Mother Nature. Some stayed under tents and some wrapped in blankets, or both, doing what they had to do to stay dry and warm, and they competed just as they do every week.
Both Lower Merion and Harriton high schools had respectable performances on Saturday as 58 teams packed the gorgeous stadium behind Great Valley High School, most setting up camp with tents displaying their school’s name and colors.
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The high points for Lower Merion were the top-five finishes in both the girls high jump and the boys 4x1600 meter and distance-medley relays.
Junior Eliana Yankelev tied with three jumpers for first by jumping 4 feet 10 inches, while senior Maggie Walker finished in a 13-way tie for fifth place by jumping 4 feet 8 inches.
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Fighting off rain in their eyes and wind from every which direction, the boys of Lower Merion finished fifth of 23 in the 4x1600 meter relay with a time of 19:21.23 and finished fourth of 23 with a 10:57.74 in the distance-medley relay—the event in which they hold the meet record of 10:29.02, set in 2007.
The boys also finished 19th of 32 teams in the 4x200 meter relay.
Lower Merion performed respectably the rest of the day, too. The girls finished 18 of 30 in the 4x800 meter relay, 13 of 18 in the 4x1600 meter relay and 18 of 21 in the distance-medley relay.
Harriton High School’s best performance of the day was the boys' distance-medley relay which finished 13 of 23 with a time of 11:45.54. The rest of the boys finished 13 of 22 in the 1600 meter sprint medley relay and 26 of 30 in the 4x800 meter relay. The girls of Harriton finished 12 of 15 in the 1600 meter sprint relay and 22 of 30 in the 4x800 meter relay.
Although there was no winner since there was no overall team scoring, North Penn and Strath Haven dominated the day, combining for 17 top-five finishes.
Rain forced the pole vault event to move to Monday.
Check back with Patch for full meet results.
