IC4A Day 2: 4x800 relay record, 7:40.65

What an outstanding way to end the outdoor season: The 3,200-meter relay team of Chris Vanzetta, David Marthy, Matt Panebianco and Kyle Havard lowered the school record in the event for the third time this season. The culminating effort on Saturday at Princeton was a 7:40.65, good for 13^th place out of 21 teams entered at the IC4A Championships.

Here are the splits and some highlights:

Chris Vanzetta (junior), 1:54.9: The race went out a bit slow and Chris got bunched up in the pack. When it started to move, Chris lagged behind a little. But he came on like gangbusters over the last 200 meters, closed hard and handed off in traffic to his good pal and old high school teammate from Shaker, David Marthy.

David Marthy (freshman), 1:54.4: After untangling from the pack, David charged out to an opening lap split of 55 seconds. From that point, he attempted a bold move to pass a pack of runners, at around the 500-meter mark (near the 1,500-meter starting line). He ran into serious resistance, got bumped around and wound up running the next 100 meters in lanes 2 and 3. The final 200 meters were a wild ride of deteriorating form and furious kicking. It was a tough, bruising leg, the hardest (and fastest) of the relay.

Matt Panebianco (junior), 1:56.5: This was clearly the slowest leg, but quite possibly the effort I am most proud of in the entire relay. Matt nearly lived up to his nickname (“Toast”), due to a weeklong battle with illness. There was discussion of whether to scratch him from the relay, or perhaps juggle the order. I grilled him repeatedly, asking him if he was good to go. Then, telling him I needed him to split a 1:55-mid or faster. He assured me he was good to go and that he could split that time. But the reality of it was, he was concerned after his warmup, as he felt like, well, toast. He split 55-high and hung tough over the second lap. The most important thing he did was hand off to our anchor leg, Kyle Havard, with a race in front of him.

Kyle Havard (senior), 1:54.6: Perhaps the most deeply satisfying aspect of this school record was having Kyle, a senior and loyal team member, bring it home with yet another strong anchor leg. In his pre-race run on Friday at Princeton, he said he felt “light” and “ready to rip.” And sure enough, he was. He battled hard for place over the second lap after his opening lap of 55-mid. He closed hard and strong. And when the time was posted on the board, no one was happier to leave the track with a school record than our anchor leg, who in a week will be graduating.

The 2012 outdoor season started with the 3,200-meter relay school record stuck at 7:53.00. At Richmond, the record went down to 7:48.55, with the team of Vanzetta, senior Tommy Lipari, Havard and Panebianco. Then, at Bucknell, it was lowered to 7:41.68 with the team of Vanzetta, Marthy, Panebianco and Havard. That record-setting team ran 7:44.04 last week at the MAAC meet, and then the new record today. So that’s four times sub-7:50 in a little more than a month, for a relay that had never sniffed that barrier.

Thanks to record-setting sprinter Jesse Aprile for supporting the team today and for taking the photo that accompanies this post.