The Penn State men's and women's track teams continued to showcase their programs before the nation's elite competition at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia.

Yesterday, the women's team performed well in the hurdles and, as always, the 4x400-meter relay, while the men's results had not come in as of press time.

On Wednesday, the women won the heptathalon and the men won the decathlon. The Penn Relays will continue today and Saturday.

Last night in front of the large crowds at Franklin Field, the 4x400, foursome of Shana Cox, Aleesha Barber, Briene Simmons and Dominique Blake, competed well but failed to improve on their time from last week despite the return of Cox, who rested as the team competed at Bucknell. The squad ran a time of 3 minutes, 41.24 seconds to win the 4th heat.

In the 400-meter hurdle events the women's team scored some high places in the meet.

Before competing in the 4x400, Barber finished in seventh for Penn State with a time of 59.11 seconds. She was followed closely by teammate Kim Markel who ran 59.79 for ninth.

The men featured some of their best athletes competing in long distance races.

Mike Syrnick, who ran his first ever steeplechase last weekend at Bucknell, ran last night. The results of the event were unavailable at press time.

The women's side also had an athlete looking to build upon her first steeplechase time from Bucknell in Bridget Franek.

Last weekend, Franek ran the fastest steeplechase time recorded in the East region this year in her first career steeplechase race. She, along with provisional qualifier Claire Percival both ran in the steeplechase Thursday, but the results were unavailable as of press time.

The coaching staff was looking for improvement, especially from Percival.

"Somebody that's gone a little under the radar is Claire Percival," head coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. "She has the regional in the steeple, and she's running it again on Thursday. Hopefully she's going to see a big improvement there and is somebody that could score well at Big Tens."

The men's team had multiple entries in the distance events. Senior Dan Mazzocco ran along with John Mahoney in the 5,000, while Tyler McCandless, Dennis O'Connor and Patrick Murphy competed in the longer 10,000. Their results were also unavailable.

While the men had only a few events on Wednesday night, the schedule for today will be quite heavy.

All the hurdle events, sprint races and field events will run throughout the morning and afternoon today. Relay races such as the 4x400 meters and the distance and sprint medleys will start off towards the early evening.