CALN \u2014 If having relays exceed the sum of their parts is the goal, then perhaps no one does it as well as Upper Darby\u2019s girls program.<\/p>\n
The Royals have no individual girls that qualified for the state meet out of the District 1 Class 3A Championships last weekend. But they\u2019re sending two relays, one of which is a distinct medal threat.<\/p>\n
The 4 x 100 squad of Ovviya Lauderdale, Amy Touray, Marziah Jones and Laila Fofana qualified Saturday morning at Coatesville High School by finishing fourth in 48.29 seconds. The 4 x 400 was third in 3:52.78, quicker than that time that delivered them a state fourth-place medal last year. Lauderdale, Fofana, Tajai Powell and Kadi Golembiewski comprised that relay.<\/p>\n
Where many effective relays teams rely on one or two top runners \u2014 maybe one specialist and another whose best distance or discipline is adjacent to that relay \u2014 Upper Darby goes about it a different way. They have exemplary balance that keeps landing them in big races.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all encourage each other and motivate each other, push each other to our best,\u201d Lauderdale said. \u201cNo one has negative energy. Everything usually goes pretty smooth, and it\u2019s very big that we\u2019re coming back this year for states.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 4\u00d74 in particular is special. The Royals were running sixth in the final heat at the midway point until Powell surged them to third on the final turn. Golembiewski was about shoulder to shoulder with the front of the back on the way to the turn, and she kept them up with winner Upper Dublin in 3:51.36 and Downingtown West in 3:51.85.<\/p>\n
Lauderdale, Powell and Golembiewski are holdovers from the team that went 3:53.94 for fourth place at states last year. Their goal at districts was to try to push into the 3:50 realm to challenge the program record, but the 3:52 is the 10th-fastest time in the state this season.<\/p>\n
The Royals are seeded ninth in the 4 x 100 this weekend and fourth in the 4 x 400.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur 4\u00d71, the goal was to just get the baton around, make it to states,\u201d Lauderdale said. \u201cThat was our goal. We did that. For the 4\u00d74, the goal was the school record today. But instead we PRed, and now we\u2019re going to states.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Royals six states runners will be there for relays only. Fofana, a freshman, was 11th in the 100 at districts. Powell was 13th in the 200. Golembiewski finished 10th in the 400.<\/p>\n
With the addition of Fofana, they haven\u2019t missed a beat this season. The Royals finished fifth in the Philadelphia Area race at Penn Relays this year. The Royals dominated the race at Delcos in 3:53.30, then found nearly another second at districts.<\/p>\n
With sole focus on two races, they hope to achieve even more at Shippensburg on Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started really, really great this year,\u201d Lauderdale said. \u201cI feel (Powell) being a freshman, she\u2019s doing so very great. I think when we\u2019re all doing our best, I think that we\u2019re all staying consistent. That\u2019s a very big part. We\u2019re all staying consistent, pushing each other through every hard race, and that\u2019s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALN \u2014 If having relays exceed the sum of their parts is the goal, then perhaps no one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[212,305,725,28,726,210,147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-198206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-delaware-county","tag-high-school-sports","tag-pa-prep-live","tag-pennsylvania","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-dtd","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}