Good morning. Just got back from filling out my women’s lacrosse bracket. In it for the big bucks.

Anyway, we’ll get to the highly-anticipated women’s lacrosse game tomorrow. But yesterday, it was the women’s tennis team’s turn.

Nice job to take the doubles point from Wake Forest, but four straight singles losses rendered the last two ongoing matches moot.

But the bigger news comes from the real world, or should I say the screwed-up world of Scott Ward.

The 64-year-old kiddie perv was sentenced to 15 years with no parole yesterday.

The ex-Wharton prof was in possession of materials showing children engaged in sex with each other and with Ward himself.

Here’s hoping this sicko’s next 15 years go by really slowly and that when he gets out, his “Little Scottie” doesn’t work anymore.

Just finished crunching the mileage numbers from the 113th edition of the Penn Relays, and here’s what we’ve got.

Pre-Thursday: 2,588.56 miles
Thursday: 2,323.02
Friday: 939.37
Saturday: 1,079.02

So the total mileage run, racewalked and wheeled at Penn Relays comes to 6,929.97 miles. That would get you more than two full loops to Jamaica and back — if you could figure out that tricky water jump.

Yohan Blake and St. Jago didn’t need to give their best effort, but they easily advanced in the Boys 4×100 this morning at Franklin Field.

Remember, this team is capable of 39.80, so we could be in for a fast one when eight teams take the track in better conditions tomorrow.

And if you’re planning on coming down to The Frank this afternoon, be advised that we’re about two hours delayed. That’s it for me. I have some schoolwork to do and may even run a few miles of my own, but I’ll be back Buzzing Saturday afternoon.

Rainy weather keeping you home from the Relays this morning? Not a problem, get your fix on the Web.

First stop on our literary tour is this humorous article about Yohan Blake, the Jamaican sensation whom you will see today and almost certainly tomorrow on St. Jago’s 4×100-meter relay team. Find out why the sprinter, who’s already run a 10.11 this year, has a career ahead of him in gynecology.

And your second must-read is Soft Pretzel Logic, Philly.com’s version of The Buzz, this week all decked out with pictures for the Relays.

A wonderful Thursday at the track was a rough Thursday for the Penn Quakers.

With the exception of the 4×400-meter relay team and the versatile Shani Boston, there wasn’t much to get excited about. Here are Penn’s Day 1 results. I was trackside all day and results aren’t all coming in, so apologies if the field events are incomplete.

Women’s 400m Hurdles:
Carolyn Auwaerter 1:04.01
(5/9 in Heat 6, 43/66 Overall)
Pari Hashemi, 1:15.60
(9/9 in Heat 4, 65/66 Overall)

Women’s 4×100m Relay:
Hannah Cope, Kelly Allred, Hallie Cope, Jessica Ehrlich, 49.53
(8/9 in Heat 2, 64/90 Overall)
A little trouble with the handoffs

Women’s Distance Medley Relay:
Charlotte Lawson, Anna Aagenes, Madeleine Evans, Jamie Liberti, 11:57.23
(12/17 in second-tier, aka “College”, division.)
Never a factor. 13th, 12th and 13th at the three handoffs.

Women’s 4×400m Relay:
Jamie Massarelli, Jesse Carlin, Pari Hashemi, Lauren Blake, 3:48.49
(2/6 in Heptagonal, aka Ivy League, race)
Second handoff nearly simultaneous with Cornell, which pulled away by four-plus seconds over the last two legs.

Men’s 3,000m Steeplechase:
Dan Howard, 9:33.75
(16/19 in second-tier “College” division)
Alesandro Shepard, 10:02.06
(18/19 in second-tier “College” division)
Both toward the back of the pack from the start

Women’s 3,000m:
Leah Brogan, 9:58.81
(15/29)

Men’s 5,000m:
Clayton Smith, 15:01.13
(32/38 in second-tier, aka “College”, division)
Brian Cullin, 15:14.36
(36/38 in “College” division)

Women’s Discus:
Charli Tabler, 34.45m
(30/32 in second-tier, aka “College”, division)

Women’s Long Jump:
Shani Boston, 5.69m
(13/31 in Eastern division)
Camille Richard, 5.50m
(t-20/31 in Eastern division)
Whitney Taglaivini, 5.50m
(t-20/31 in Eastern division)

Women’s Shot Put:
Shani Boston, 13.11m
(10/25 in Eastern division)
Iman Johnson, 12.45m
(19/25 in Eastern division)

Distance count: Using the rules of our contest a few posts back, there were 2,323.02 miles run at the Penn Relays Thursday, for a running total (no pun intended) of 4,911.58 miles.

When Penn Relays fans think of Long Beach Poly, they often think of their trademark, but currently absent, high socks or of Relays studette Shalonda Solomon who went on to star for South Carolina.

But they’re just the beginning of the long list of great names to come out of the school. Ranked No. 1 in the country on Sports Illustrated’s recent list of best sports high schools, Poly has produced Tony Gwynn, Chase Utley, Billie Jean King, Willie McGinest and not-as-athletic stars Cameron Diaz and Snoop Dogg.

Now, keep an eye out for this name, the best name in this year’s field and one of the best runners as well. Turquoise Thompson ran a 54.0 split, the second fastest of the 2,272 high school girls 4×400m splits.

And on a strange note, we have a high school team in town from Birmingham, England, which features national champion distance runner Hannah England. Weird.

On second thought, ignore that last post.

After it was announced that Kimberly Williams broke the triple jump record with a 12.91-meter jump, that record was taken away.

The culprit: a 2.7 meters per second (roughly 6.0 miles per hour) tail wind, which nullifies the jump as far as the record books go. However, first place is still hers.

It didn’t take long for a record to be set at the 2007 Penn Relays, and the source was not a surprising one.

Kimberly Williams of Vere Tech in Jamaica became the first ever three-time winner of the High School Girls Triple Jump and did it with a Relays record 12.91-meter jump.

Williams broke the nine-year-old record of 12.87 meters, set by Carlene Cummings of Dwight Morrow (Englewood, N.J.). Williams had won the 2005 and 2006 events with jumps of 12.47 meters both years.

Just a few more thoughts as I sit through an insufferable 3 hours and 40 minutes of high school girls 4×400 action.

The best moment of the morning so far was the special welcome and large ovation for the 4×100 team of Virginia Tech. As I wrote last week, there would be a time when sports would regain their place in Hokiedom. The healing is far from complete if it can ever be complete, but it’s nice to see some aspects of atatlife moving on in a normal way.

The play of the day so far goes to an anonymous cameraman, who saved one heat of the 4×100. After Georgia State dropped the baton on its final handoff, the stick went unnoticed in Lane 8 as the next heat started. But our hero saw the baton and quickly got it out of the way to a nice ovation from the Northeast corner of Franklin Field.

The Relays staff is a little behind on having official results posted, but stay tuned to the Buzz for your Quakers results and to see any records that fall over the next three days.

Welcome to ladies day at the Penn Relays as the high school girls and college women take the big stage.

Here are the day’s highlights and lowlights so far.

Highlights:
Methacton (PA) high schooler Ryann Krais ran a 58.93, the nation’s fastest time of the year, to win the 400-meter hurdles.

Fellow DP sportswriter Pari Hashemi getting the action started this morning in the college edition of the 400m hurdles. She’ll compete later in the Heps 4×400.

The Penn Relays showing a little sense of humor in their homage to the Second Vatican Council, putting Pope John XXIII (NJ) and Pope Paul VI (VA) in the same heat of the 4×800 small schools relay.

Penn Relays director Dave Johnson and his cronies competing against yours truly in a rousing game of Quizo at New Deck last night. Glad to see he could go out the night before the big day.

My first Jamaican beef patty of the weekend.

Lowlights:
The fact that the line was out the door at Dunkin Donuts on Walnut Street this morning with several runners in the group. I know they’re a sponsor this year, but isn’t there something better to eat before the races?

An ugly collision on the last handoff by the Heritage High School 4×100 team. But anchor Shanice Mitchell made a nice recovery and even stayed out of last place in the race.

Our first of many raindrops over the course of the next three days.

And for those of you who entered the contest yesterday, going into the start of today’s events, we were at 2,603.58 miles with the distance classic, the decathlon and the heptathlon completed.