For Ocean City’s Schoedler, frustration at Relays

Looking as if he had just witnessed some kind of revelation, a wide-eyed Miles Schoedler wasn't pulling any punches.

"I [stunk]," the Ocean City senior said bluntly. "That's it."

The Penn Relays hold completely different meanings for different athletes. But for Schoedler, they were a wakeup call.

He entered Friday's high school boys' mile run championship as the No. 1 seed. In fact, he was South Jersey's only No. 1 seed this weekend at Franklin Field.

But Schoedler's time of 4 minutes, 21.28 seconds placed him 10th in the 15-team field.

"I'm just not where I should be fitness-wise," he said. "I thought I was in a lot better shape, but I guess I'm not."

Schoedler is not far removed from recording a personal best time of 4:11.42, which he achieved Feb. 27 in the Brooks PR Invitational in Seattle.

He has another month to get back to that point before the state championships.

Schoedler pointed to an improved fitness regimen - specifically, more swimming - as the remedy to a disappointing performance.

"I just need to think about what I'm doing differently and take it from there," he said.

"But definitely something has to change."

Running for the Cos. With the watchful eye of Bill Cosby upon them, several area schools turned in strong showings Friday morning in the high school boys' 4x100 preliminaries.

None qualified for the eight-team Championship of America, but Willingboro's time of 43.28 seconds placed it 19th out of 257 schools participating in the small-school division.

Woodbury finished 25th (43.50), Camden finished 27th (43.58), and West Deptford finished 33d (43.68) among small schools.

"Being out here with all these people is a motivation," said Moorestown senior Kamal Steward, whose team placed 40th in 43.79. "I love running the Penn Relays. And it's nice having Bill Cosby watching you, too."

Cosby, seated on a bench at the finish line, greeted runners as they all but lined up to shake his hand.

The comedian, 73, has been attending the Relays since he competed in them in high school and college in the 1950s and '60s.

"This is something that [the runners] will remember even as they grow into adults and have families," Cosby said. "This will register; it doesn't even make any difference what their time was."

Traven's travels. For Willingboro's Traven Mable, competing in the high school boys' shot put championship was four years in the making.

"Making it here was basically like checking off one of my high school goals," he said. "It's my last year in high school, and I'm just glad I came here for this experience."

Mable finished with a respectable throw of 49 feet, 101/2 inches.

His performance was trumped by Nick Vena's historic day.

With a throw of 72-91/4, the Morristown senior became the fourth high school athlete in Penn Relays history to win four individual championships.

Vena's winning throw broke the Penn Relays high school shot put record, which Vena, a 6-foot-4, 270-pound man-child, had set with a 72-21/2 as a sophomore in 2009.

Distance medley. In other South Jersey action, Haddonfield placed 11th in the 18-team high school boys' Distance Medley Championship of America.

The Bulldogs finished in 10:28.46.

Christian Brothers (Lincroft, N.J.), won the race in 10:13.04.

The Haddonfield team consisted of Ben Potts, Eric Lacy, Tim Malloy, and Matt Nussbaum.

"Our coach always tells us not to react to these things right afterwards," Nussbaum said. "So our immediate reaction might not be what we're saying tomorrow. But, right now, we're disappointed; we're better than that.

"I'm not saying we would have won or anything, but we expected to be in the top five or top six."