St. John's University Athletics
St. John's University
Penn Relays Day Three
St. John's Shines at 2018 Penn Relays
4/30/2018 12:00:00 AM | Women's Track and Field
QUEENS, N.Y. - In front of over 108,000 spectators, the St. John's track and field team shined in front of the national audience, recording six top-10 finishes at the historic Penn Relays over the weekend in Philadelphia.
In one of the most highly-regarded track and field events in the world, the Red Storm provided multiple highlights in the 124th version of the games.
During individual competition, Erica Graham and Anointing Onuoha emerged as the top highlight for the Johnnies over the four-day event. The pairing finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in the women's long jump second division finals.
Graham's mark of 5.96 meters finished just 0.04 meters off of a career-best mark; while Onuoha's 5.92-meter score was the best of her career, shattering her previous career best of 5.80 set earlier this season. Both scores are qualifiers for the ECAC Championships.
Nyla Woods continues to improve as the weather warms; finishing sixth in the women's hammer throw second division finals. Her mark of 55.85 meters was her second-best throw of the outdoor season in 2018, and finished just outside the top five. Jennifer Odoemene posted a 22nd-place mark in the event as well, throwing a 47.59-meter score.
Esmarelda Reyes fired her third-best score of her young career in the women's javelin second division finals. Her 40.23 throw came on her lone attempt of the event, and placed the freshman in 15th.
In the shot put second division finals, Amarys Berry led the Johnnies with a 21st-place mark with a 13.46-meter toss. Two of the sophomore's three throws eclipsed the 13.40-meter mark and is the third-straight meet throwing over 13 meters.
Bernadette McGowan also saw action in the shot put, finishing inside the top-35 with a 12.54-meter throw. The score marks the fourth-straight meet the sophomore has recorded a top throw of over 12 meters.
A trio of Johnnies also performed strongly in the 400-meter hurdles finals as Torisha LaForce, Chenoa Sebastian, and Jasmine Burkett also finished inside the top-40 in the event.
LaForce led the way with a 29th-place finish, setting a new career-best time of 1:02.61 in the process. The mark was the second-best time among competitors from the BIG EAST Conference, finishing just seconds behind the conference leader from Georgetown.
Sebastian finished just seconds behind her teammate, LaForce, posting a 31st-place mark with a career-best time of her own at 1:02.76. Both LaForce and Sebastian
Burkett became the fourth-best conference finisher behind LaForce and Sebastian at 1:03.58 to finish 40th.
Moving to the relay events, St. John's recorded a trio of top-10 finishes in some of the highlight events of the meet.
In the eastern division 4x100-meter relay, Denesha Ransome, Maya Stephens, Destiny Davis, and Leah Anderson finished fifth with a 46.60 time. The time finished just .29 seconds off the leaders and qualified the group for the ECAC Championships.
Also competing in the eastern division, Ransome, Davis, and LaForce were joined by Kafi Ottley in the 4x200-meter relay event and finished with a new seasonal best in the event at 1:39.57. The group shaved nearly a second off its preliminary time to capture a top-10 finish.
In the collegiate division, the group of Sebastian, Anderson, Ottley, and Stephens finished seventh in the 4x400-meter relay with a seasonal-best time of 3:40.94. Shaving nearly seven seconds off its preliminary attempt to finish just behind Penn State and Boston University in the event.
St. John's will return home for the Tom Farrell Classic this Saturday to compete in the lone home meet of the season. The program will honor the 50th anniversary of Farrell winning bronze in the 800-meter dash at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.
Players Mentioned
