HAVERFORD, Pa. – The distance medley relay kicked off the annual McElligott Invitational Friday night inside the Alumni Field House with both genders entering one relay. Both Haverford teams raced to third place finishes in their events.

The men’s quad (Henry Woods, Jonathan Yellets, Soren Rasmussen, and Charlie Marquardt) finished in a time of 10:06.79. That time would have topped the national ratings had it not been for one of the two teams that finished ahead of them. Widener finished with a mark of 10:02.52 to win the race. Ardmore, a relay featuring several Haverford All-American Alumni came in just 27-hundredeths of a second ahead of the current Haverford runners.

On the women’s side, the Fords (Nora Weathers, Katherine Greifeld, Katie Balmer and Nicole Giannetti) just missed a season best with a mark of 12:34.68 after the four legs. Johns Hopkins (12:05.25) and Elizabethtown (12:28.72) claimed the top two slots in the four team field.

Both the men’s and women’s teams will be back in action tomorrow with action on the track scheduled to get started at 11 a.m.

About Seamus McElligott (Read Full Hall of Achievement Bio)

Seamus McElligott was one of the most decorated cross country and track athletes in Haverford history. A six-time national champion, McElligott holds the distinction of being the last Division III student-athlete to also earn D-I All-America status (cross country 1990, outdoor track 1991). He captured the D-III cross country title in 1990 and then went on to win both the 5,000- and 10,000-meter runs in 1990 and 1991, at the outdoor D-III meet. McElligott also won the 5,000 at the 1990 indoor championship.

McElligott, who was posthumously inducted into the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's (USTFCCCA) Division III Track & Field Athlete Hall of Fame in May of 2013, earned 14 All-America certificates while running for Haverford and set school records that continue to stand in the indoor 3,000 (8 minutes, 10.6 seconds) and 5,000 (14:07.69) and the outdoor 10,000 (29:14.34). Four of McElligott’s performances still rank in the top 10 all-time in D-III history.

Haverford began hosting the Seamus McElligott (indoor track) Invitational in 1999 and continues to host the meet where an award is presented annually to the Haverford athlete with the top performance at the Invite.