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St. Raphael's Academy took home 2nd place at the Penn Relays yesterday running 10:15.41 after putting a late charge on leader Union Catholic. St. Raphael's would fall one second short of the win, but it's pretty remarkable to see a RIIL Class C school from Rhode Island hold their own against the best DMR squads in the country.
The Distance Medley Relay goes 1200m-400m-800m-1600m. Pedro Mayol would lead them off running the 1200m leg. He would assert himself towards the front of the field hanging in 2nd for most of his leg. He made a move on the final 400m of his leg to hand off to Josh Farrell with a lead over the field splitting 3:10 just a second up over the field.
Union Catholic's Myles Plummer would quickly move into the lead with the fastest split of the leg clocking 49.73 giving them a solid lead over the field. Farrell would handoff in seventh, but in a group with 5 schools just in front of them.
Union Catholic held a solid lead over the field, but Kipyego had worked his way up and sat at the front of the chase group. With Union Catholic all alone at the bell, Kipyego began quickly closing the lead. Just as you thought he may be able to catch Bronsan, he turned on a click and to close in 4:15.21 for the win overall in 10:14.42. Kipyego would bring St. Raphael's home in 2nd in 10:15.41. Coming into the event he had run 4:10 for the full Mile, and took nearly 5 seconds off of that with an official 1600m anchor split of 4:04.35. He was able to move up six spots on anchor leg and his split was the fastest across all the 1600m legs.
Kipyego individually has made some incredible jumps as a junior, and I'd expect to see him drop something big in the near future. Congrats to St. Raphael and Coach Chris Magill on an excellent performance!