April 30, 2011
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - The Purdue women's 4x400-meter relay and an impressive performance by senior Shane Crawford in the men's 100-meter dash headlined an outstanding final day of competition for the Boilermakers at The Penn Relays. The Boilermaker women finished fourth in the College division finals, while Crawford was third in the College Championship at the 117th edition of the prestigious event hosted by the University of Pennsylvania.
Crawford took home a third-place finish against some of the nation's best on Saturday, turning in a time of 10.51 seconds despite a 1.0 mph headwind. Crawford owns the fastest mark in the Big Ten this season at 10.37 seconds, posted last weekend at the Jesse Owens Track Classic, and ran 10.38 seconds on Friday to qualify for the finals. LSU's Gabriel Mvumvure won the event with a time of 10.33 while TCU's Charles Silmon was second in 10.41.
After turning in a two-second season best on Thursday to reach the College division finals, the Boilermaker quartet of senior NaTasha Blair, junior Janan Graham and freshmen Ebony Woodard and Taylor Morrison shaved another two seconds off their time in the finals for a mark of 3:39.79. The Boilermaker rookies both turned in sub-55 second splits as Woodard ran 54.77 for the opening leg, while Morrison blazed a split of 54.17 on the third leg. The relay's mark is the fifth-fastest in the Big Ten this season as the Boilermakers are almost within three seconds of the top time held by Illinois.
The Old Gold and Black got another fourth-place relay effort in the College division of the women's 4x800-meter event. Sophomores Alice Feslier Holmes, Kelly McCurdy, Camille Buscomb and Kari Shoolbraid combined to run 8:53.96, including an impressive 2:11.25 split by Shoolbraid on the anchor leg. Feslier Holmes and Buscomb came in at 2:12.78 and 2:12.81, respectively, while McCurdy posted a split of 2:17.14.
Sophomore Geoff Davis and junior Chris Anderson turned in impressive efforts in the field events on Saturday as Davis took fifth in the College Championship division of the men's high jump, while Anderson was seventh in the College division of the men's javelin. Davis cleared 2.16 meters (7-01.00) on his first attempt before bowing out of the competition at 2.19 meters (7-02.25) and Anderson had a top throw of 59.69 meters (195-10) to come up just shy of his season-best mark.
The remainder of the Boilermaker men's and women's teams are in the midst of competition at the Butler Stan Lyons Invitational in Indianapolis, which is scheduled to run to almost midnight on Saturday. The teams come back together for one last regular season meet next Friday, heading down to Indiana University for the Billy Hayes Invitational.