By Elliot Denman // Photo by Karthik Adimula

PHILADELPHIA, April 26, 2015 – They made Emily Lipari the cover girl on the program to the 121st edition of the Penn Relays for some very good reasons. After all, the 2014 Villanova graduate out of Long Island's Roslyn High School enjoyed one of the greatest careers a college runner ever had at the Penn Relays.

By the time of her graduation last spring as a psychology major she'd collected six Penn Relays Championship of America winner's watches and five of them came anchoring winning Wildcat teams.

Her performance at the 2014 Penn Relays was one for the books – the diminutive middle distance runner loomed large over Franklin Field, leading coach Gina Procaccio's Villanova to three wins. First came a third consecutive distance medley win, next a 4x1500 triumph, finally a 4x800 title.

Now based in Beantown and representing the Boston AA, Lipari had a return engagement at Franklin Field Saturday, but it had an unfamiliar result – Lipari settled for third place in the women's Olympic Development 1500-meter race won by NYAC's Kerri Gallagher (4:34.42) over Canada/Villanova Olympian Sheila Reid (4:37.46) with Lipari next over the line in 4:39.86.

"It's just really exciting to be back here," said Lipari. "I love this place.

"This is like homeland to me so I'm really pumped up to be here.  It's different because I'm not in college anymore, so I'm not sharp right now.  I'm just getting out there and getting the feel of Penn Relays again."

Clearly, by the awe she felt just stepping onto the Franklin Field track, it's an unbeatable feeling - even when she winds up in third place.

The celebrated USA Vs. The World Series boiled down to the USA Vs. Jamaica Series.

Basically, anyway, even though Bahamas, Canada, China. Hong Kong, Guyana, Nigeria, Brazil, Botswana and Australia were represented, too, in major warmups for all of them heading into the second edition of the IAAF World Relay Championships next weekend in Nassau, Bahamas.

When all was done, the gold medal count was USA 4, Jamaica 2. The American swept the men's slate, clocking 38.68 in the 4x100, 1:21.45 in the 4x200, and 3:00.86 in the 4x400.

But Jamaica women took two of their three – winning the 4x100 (43.70) and 4x400 (3:26.58) leaving only the 4x200 to USA (1:31.98.)

Sure to be in spotlight in Bahamas – where he'll duel with Usain Bolt (not at Penn) –was Justin Gatlin, the embattled 2004 Olympic 100 champion fighting to restore his stature after a four-year drug ban. 

After that long ordeal, primary motivation for him is intensely personal.

And it truly stings – every time some follower of the sport calls him "a drug cheat."

As he put it, "I don't go and start my year off and and say "I want to beat Usain, or I want to go beat Yohan (Blake, also absent from Penn.)

Here's Gatlin on Gatlin: "I (just) want to beat Justin. I want to beat Justin of 2014. In 2014, Justin did a great job, I think, so (in) 2015 Justin has to step up his game to not only dominate but to get on the podium again."

Gatlin ran second leg – with Mike Rodgers, Isiah Young and Ryan Bailey – on the USA Red team that took the 4x100 by 0.20 over Jamaica, with the Sean McLean-anchored USA Blue Team right in the mix, too, third in 38.92.

It was Patrick Feeney delivering the final fireworks of the series, blasting a 44.84 lap to anchor the USA's 4x400 win over Olympic champion Bahamas' gallant runnerup 3:01.63.

"I felt him (Bahamas anchor Ramon Miller) the entire way," said Feeney. "But luckily I was able to keep it going all the way through the line."

Perhaps the biggest Saturday stunner was Villanova's verdict over Oregon in the men's collegiate Championship of America 4 x mile relay.

Sam McEntee (4:02.0), Robert Denault (4:01.4) and Patrick Tiernan (4:01.1) got the Wildcats off to a blistering start. But Oregon, Stanford and Georgetown were right there, too, as the anchor racers took over.

And then this race turned weird – for whatever reason it seemed a walk for three laps, as a pack of sub-4 men turned it into a jog.  The savvy crowd even booed this lead pack, realizing their slow pace.

It what seemed like a labor action, it thus boiled down to a 400-meter last lap dash.

Eventually, Jordan Williamsz of Villanova proved himself the best sprinter in that lead pack. His 4:13.6 carry sufficed to bring the Wildcats home first in 16:18.07 over Oregon's 16:18.93 (Edward Cheserek 4:14.5), Stanford 16:20.44  (Sean McGorty 4:11.2) and Georgetown's 16:22.50 (Ahmed Bile 4:12.4.)

Lost in all this shuffling was Penn junior and Chaminade (Mineola) High alumnus Thomas Awad, with a 4:00.7 on the second-leg mile carry for the sixth-place Quakers. Joe Hardy of Wisconsin – not the "Damn Yankees" cast – lifted the Badgers from far back to fifth with his 4:02.3 anchor. 

"The last lap was basically full of theater (albeit slow-motion)," said Villanova coach and mile great Marcus O'Sullivan. "It was full of exciting moments. I'm thrilled."

In early-morning action, Shore AC's Jonathan Hallman, the Millrose Games champion at the Armory, led the men's Olympic Development 10,000-meter racewalk in 44:14.17. Long Island Olympian Maria Michta-Coffey followed with a 21:50.15 breeze in the 5,000 walk.

Mount Vernon High's Rai Benjamin – brilliant this winter at the Armory - clocked a sizzling 51.29 for the 400 hurdles in the 9 a.m. morning chill.  But it got him only second place in a race won by Marvin Williams of Jamaica's St. Elizabeth Tech in51.10. 

Iona Prep's Ryan Herrera-Murphy brought joy back to New Rochelle with his boys pole vault win at 15-9.  Marylander Calvin Pitney also soared 15-9 but had more misses on the way up-up-up. It brought the Penn boys scholastic PV back to New York for the first time in five years – or since Jordan Yamoah of Arlington's LaGrangeville High won with the meet-record clearance of 16-6 1/2 in 2011.