Penn Relays 2025 Recap: Day 3
That’s a wrap on another amazing Penn Relays, and it ended with a bang!. Some afternoon rain showers might’ve ruined the streak of beautiful racing weather, but it certainly didn’t spoil the racing itself. Several Mercer County schools capped the week with terrific results in the girls 4x100m and 4x400m.
Click here to see more highlights from Day 1 and Day 2.
Girls 4x400m
The Lawrenceville girls have been absolutely crushing it this week, and a little bit of rain wasn’t about to put out their fire.
This morning, they won the prep school heat of the 4x400m in a blistering 3:49.24! That was their fourth school record of the meet, and made them just the second school in Mercer County history to go sub-3:50. It was also a prep school record for the Penn Relays!
Their time is especially remarkable given that, unlike all the other top teams, the Big Red had zero competition to push them. They were already a full second ahead at the first exchange thanks to a 57.11 split by Jael Gaines, and then the other teams were out of sight after Sofia Swindell followed that up with a blistering 55.44. Despite running entirely solo, Yasmin Willie went sub-60 with a 59.84, and then Rhianna Scott brought them home in 56.87. Those were all spectacular splits, meeting or exceeding their lofty PRs.
They were 16th overall in the morning heats, which qualified for the Philadelphia Area final in the late afternoon. Essentially, their incredible solo effort was their ticket to facing tougher competition, and they made the most of it.
In the Philadelphia Area final, Lawrenceville ran even faster, by over a second, to win in 3:48.18! They did it by fending off a challenge from Willingsboro, who finished 2nd in 3:50.22. Splits aren’t available online – except for the anchor Scott, whose incredible 56.35 leg was a half-second faster than in the morning – but it’s clear that all four girls were flying. What an amazing way to cap a historic weekend for Lawrenceville. They’ll enjoy hanging up that well-deserved plaque!
(NJ.com’s Bakari Tice talked with the girls and Coach Derrhyl Duncan after the race, and you can read that article here: Lawrenceville girls best school record, win Philadelphia Area 4x400 at 2025 Penn Relays.)
A little further back in the prep school heat, Peddie had a historic race of their own when they shattered their school record, taking 3rd place in 4:04.58. The old school record was 4:08.63 from 1999, but that couldn’t withstand four awesome splits from Matilda Kardhashi (62.32), Courtney Cane (60.26), Erin Tam (65.07) and Tessa Hughes (56.94). Considering none of those girls do the 400m as a main event – Kardhashi and Cane are distance runners, while Tam and Hughes do mostly hurdles and jumps – they certainly have a ton of one-lap talent!
One team that surprised with a huge 4x400m performance was WWP North, who ran 4:04.45 and took 2nd place in their heat! Yes, the Knights were #3 in Mercer County during winter track, but their best was only 4:14, and today they were running almost the same lineup as from sectionals and groups in February. These girls have made some big improvements in two months! Having distance star Zui Chinchalkar step down and run a 60.86 certainly helped, and the three members of the indoor squad – Nina Dixit (62.22), Mahima Sansal (61.44), and Brie Davis-Owens (59.95) – also came through with excellent splits. Given their improvement and this performance, they are within striking distance of becoming WWP North’s first-ever sub-4:00 team.
Two other local schools to go under 4:15 were Wilberforce, whose 4:10.86 was an 8-second improvement on their winning time from the TCNJ Invitational earlier this month, and Hopewell Valley, who ran 4:14.90 for their best time this school year. In addition, Stuart Country Day deserves credit for their nice race, where they ran 4:21.77 and edged out the Hopkins School by 0.10 seconds to finish 2nd place in the prep school independent division.
Girls 4x100m
Yesterday, the Lawrenceville 4x100m girls ran a school-record 47.89 to qualify for today’s Northeast final, which included the top 9 teams from Delaware and above who did not qualify for the Championship of America. Today, in rainy conditions, those four girls (Blake Hatwood, Rhianna Scott, Jael Gaines, and Sofia Swindell) came back to run 48.62 for 6th place in the final. While not an improvement, it’s still an excellent result – and the fourth-fastest time in school history.