Exploring the possibilities

They won the race by a whopping eight seconds, the only team to crack eight minutes.

“Not what we were expecting,” anchor man Luke Ullman said with a smile.

The La Salle 4x800-meter relay had quite a day at the CB West Relays, racing to a first-place time of 7:56.99 and suggesting there could be a big postseason ahead for this group.

The foursome of Peter Nelson, Brendan Price, Evan Addison and Ullmann outraced 13 others in their field, including Central Bucks East (8:04.51) and Council Rock North (8:08.13).

It provided quite a nice tune-up for this week’s Penn Relays, where the Explorer foursome will look to continue a proud legacy in the Distance Medley Relay.

“In the past we’ve had teams come in first, second or third for the DMR so maybe we could get fourth... maybe even better,” Ullmann said. “We’re looking to really kick it in for the DMR because this is one of the best teams we’ve ever had.”

Nelson, Price, Addison and Ullman teamed up again later in the day at West on Saturday, clocking a 3:30.93 to place seventh in the 4x4, keyed by Ullman’s kick on the anchor leg.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” he said, “but it felt really good.”

Just as the 4x4’s kicked off, rain started to come down hard at War Memorial Field, providing a wet but enjoyable finish to the afternoon.

“We were only doing it to have fun — it was more of a workout,” Ullman said of the 4x4, “but once we saw we were doing really well, we really went at it, ran our hardest.”

La Salle’s day also included a victory in the 4x100 relay (43.83) and a pair of wins out in the field.

Alex Sislo (21-7.5) and Octavious Carter (19-4.5) teamed up for a first place in the long jump and Noah Walker led the way in the jav, throwing a 185-9 and joining Derek Beavers (1218) to get the gold with a total of 307-5.

Best in the field

Locals dominated the late Friday night action at the Ninth Annual Jack

Armstrong Invitational Friday evening at Abington.

Jennifer McAneney of Upper Dublin won the discus, throwing 124 feet, 8 inches to get the gold, Taylor O’Brien of Plymouth-Whitemarsh cleared 5-2 to win the high jump and Madison Langley-Walker of Upper Dublin got out 18-3 in the long jump to get the win.

Also, there was more for the Cardinals, as Anastasia Berger of Upper Dublin got up 9-6 in the pole vault for a gold and Sianni McLeod of Abington threw 41-6.5 for tops in the shot put.

And Cheltenham’s Shannon Nixon outdid 21 other competitors in the triple jump, reeling off a firstplace leap of 34-0.75.