PENN RELAYS: Cherokee boys reach championship race

Friday, April 27, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — As Cherokee's Drew Viscidy walked off the track and into a Franklin Field tunnel after his anchor leg in the 4 x 800, he couldn't help but shout at the uncompromising cold.

Wearing nothing but his skintight track suit, it was a relief to step out of Friday's winds and into a heated alley after placing second in his team's qualifying heat at the Penn Relays.

Those gusts, depending on where you stood in the race, were your enemy. Preferably, they were your enemy's enemy. However, for the Chiefs' relay team — which led for most of the race but lagged in its third and fourth legs, finishing with the day's third-best time of 7:53.30 — the wind was rarely its friend.

The time, although the third fastest of the day, was the fastest 4 x 800 turned in this spring by a New Jersey team and ranks eighth in Burlington County history outdoors.

Colin Merrigan jumped into the lead and went headfirst into it. Shawn Wilson pushed through it and widened Cherokee's advantage. But as Viscidy waited for Ross Staudt to deliver the baton for the final 800 meters, he couldn't shake the cold, the wind or Chariho's Mike Marsella.

The Chariho (R.I.) team, drafting behind Staudt and shooting past Viscidy, took the race on the last leg and clocked in at 7:52.69. Cherokee coach Chris Callinan remained pleased that his team qualified for Saturday's 4x800 final, but there is still room for improvement heading into the championship race.

"Once you get in the lead, like we did, you want to get out, because you don't want to break the wind for somebody else," Callinan said. "If they are going to have you break the wind, they are going to have to try like crazy to get there.

"We started off really well. It's just really chilly and windy down here. ... We're the third seed heading into the finals. We'll talk to these guys; we'll get them out of there and come back tomorrow," he said.

Early in the race, it was a two-team tussle between Cherokee and Kingston College (Jamaica). But Viscidy knew he had an advantage, at least mentally, when he saw his Caribbean counterparts trembling in the cold. Kingston's squad would fall off the pace during Viscidy's leg, but Marsella made a charge and gave the Chiefs somebody else to worry about entirely.

As Viscidy tried to establish a gap and put the blustering wind back in Marsella's path, Chariho's anchor brushed by him. Nevertheless, with another day to improve on his team's time, the Cherokee senior will remember this windy day with a bit of affection.

"The wind is coming at you, and you can definitely feel the wind," Viscidy said. "But then, with people in the stands, it's kind of cool. It's a combination of these conditions but being in pretty awesome conditions."