Personal Best for Price at Penn Relays

PHILADELPHIA -- As Sean Price loosened up for his first Penn Relays triple jump, he felt 38,000 pairs of eyes watching him, and heard their wild cheers.
"Sean! Sean! Sean!" they chanted, waiting for him to dash down the track and into the sand pit.

OK, so that wasn't exactly the case, but it may as well have been for the South Lakes High School senior, who used it to his  advantage.

"The atmosphere helps a lot," he said. "I know they're not cheering for me. The 4x100 [relay races] are going on and they're cheering for that, but I channeled that as support for me. I liked that."

It worked: Price performed at his best in the corner of Franklin Field over the weekend. Ranked 16th of 20 entering the competition,  Price leapt his way to a fifth-place medal with a career-best 47 foot, 3 1/2 inch jump.

In his first individual event at the Penn Relays -- the oldest and largest track and field event in the United States -- Price relied on a zero pressure mentality.

"I came in as a nobody, so I didn't have anything to worry about," he said. "So I just went out there and had fun with it. If you stay loose at an event, you'll do a lot better."

Price is a somebody at South Lakes. He was a first-team All-Met track choice as a junior after winning Bruin Hall of Fame titles in the triple (46-8 1/2) and long (21-11 3/4) jumps. Later, he also captured Liberty District and Northern Region titles in both. 

Two months ago, he finished fourth in the triple jump (46-1 1/2) at the Indoor Virginia State Championships, and second in the long jump (22 4 1/2).

On the football field,  he caught 49 passes for 820 yards and eight touchdowns for the Seahawks, and rushed 14 times for 275 yards and four scores. Price will join teammate Darius Smith at Appalachian State in the fall.

"Football is something I like more than track," he said. "I like the team aspect. Track is fun, too, but you can only do so much by yourself."

Another thing Price often does by himself, because he has to, is play songs in his head. Friends call him a human MP3 player, and he'll often be spotted grooving for no apparent reason on a field, in class or on the sidewalk.

"I'm always listening to something," he said. "You'll see me bopping out of nowhere. People look at me wrong and go, 'What's this crazy dude doing?' I could play a whole song over and over again, whatever is stuck in my head for that moment."

While he said he doesn't take requests and doesn't favor a particular genre, he has limits.

"No country," he said, with a laugh. "Definitely no country."

Instead, he'll settle for being the fifth-best high-school triple jumper in the country.

"If you get into Penn in an individual event, everyone is like, 'Oh, you're doing something," he said. "They are obviously the  best athletes, and then there are people like me who just improve. You're not going to beat everybody, so you might as well go out and compete."

Relay teams: South Lakes' girls' and boys' squads sent relay teams to the Penn Relays as well, competing in the 4x100 and 4x400 races.

A quartet of Emily Lopynski, Danielle Hale, Haley Vaughn and Kyannah Calhoun finished in 4:11.51, third in their heat.

"I was really nervous waiting, but going was so fun," said Vaughn, a sophomore who was running in her first Penn Relays. "It's a whole different environment because there's so many people here. It makes it easier because there's so much adrenaline."

Earlier on Thursday, Kristin Tran, Naimah Coleman, Aya Abdelhalim and Danielle Hale finished 108th of 265 in the 4x100 with a time of 52.09.

The boys' foursome of Ian Angara, Corey Gilmore, Brian Brinson, Jacob Grundahl ran the 4x400 in 3:26.20, good for fourth in their heat.

Gilmore, Brinson, Angra and Price also combined for the 4x100, tying with Norristown for 42nd in their heat with a time of 43.82.
 

Results for Event 708: High School Boys' Triple Jump Championship1. Marquis Dendy, Middletown (Middletown, DE), 50-8 1/4.2. Jarred Gambrell, Athens (Athens, PA), 50-0 3/4.3. Shane Green, Erasmus Hall (Brooklyn, NY), 48-7 1/2.4. Tawanda Washaya, St. Johns (Harare, ZIM), 47-4 1/4.5. Sean Price, South Lakes (Reston, VA), 47-3 1/2.6. Ian Welsh, Central Catholic (Pittsburgh, PA), 47-1 1/2.7. Jared Posey, William Penn (York, PA), 46-11 1/2.8. Marcus Dean, Western Branch (Chesapeake, VA), 46-10 3/4.9. Chris Williams, William Penn (New Castle, DE), 45-7 3/4.10. Ricky Blake, Nansemond River (Suffolk, VA), 45-3 3/4.11. Gregory Hazell, Don Bosco Prep (Ramsey, NJ), 45-2 1/4.12. Treval Hatcher, Riverhead (Riverhead, NY), 44-3 1/2.13. Tyrek Edwards, Archbishop Ryan (Philadelphia, PA), 43-11 3/4.14. Fitzroy Dunkley, Jamaica College (Kingston, JAM), 42-7 1/2.