Going into the day, Strath Haven’s Dayo Abeeb, with a second-place in the Class 3A triple jump Friday, was the only Delco boys athlete to running medals at the PIAA Track & Field Championships.

With no teams in the 4 x 400-meter relay, the last event of the day, the county was on the verge of being shut out of running medals contention in the running events if Radnor’s Ethan Zeh and Upper Darby’s Jarnail Dhillon did not come through in the Class 3A 800-meter run at Shippensburg’s Seth Grove Stadium Saturday afternoon.

They did, and saved the county’s track reputation in the process.

Zeh took sixth and Dhillon was eighth in the boys 3A 800 meters to keep the county from being blanked in the running events for what may have been the first time ever.

“It’s interesting because we’ve been running together since the indoor season,” Dhillon said. “It’s been great competition.”

“That is pretty wild,” Zeh said.

What made it special is that neither runner was expected to running medals, at least according to the seeds. Zeh was seeded 13th and Dhillon 14th out of a field of 33 runners, but made it through the preliminary round to qualify for the final and turned in the best times of their careers to earn running medals.

Zeh crossed the finish line in 1 minute, 54.88 seconds, a PR by .77 seconds, which he set in the qualifying round. Dhillon crossed in 1:55.68. That was .16 seconds better than the 1:55.84 he ran Friday. Both runners succeeded despite it being their first trip to the state meet.

“It was the people around us, the field, the environment,” Dhillon said. “It was amazing.”

“You had all these people here,” Zeh said. “It pumps you up. I got a little nervous, but it also made me very excited to run in front of all of these people. Everyone is very fast here and good at what they do. It brings out the best in you.”

Dhillon predicts a bright future for Zeh, who is a junior.

“You’re looking at the next Delco champ,” Dhillon said.

As for Dhillon, this most likely was his final competitive meet. He will attend Temple in the fall and the school does not have a varsity men’s track team, only a club program, but he is not sure if he’s going to continue to run. If this was his last competitive meet, at least he goes out with a state running medals.

“It’s honestly crazy,” Dhillon said. “I never thought I’d be here when I started running. It’s intense. I’m very happy. It’s a great way to end the season.”

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A month ago, Cardinal O’Hara’s Derrick Patrick was mainly a hurdler and sometime sprinter. As for the jumps, well that was something he did back in grammar school, first at Nativity BVM in Media and then at St. Mary Magdalen in Upper Providence.

One day, Patrick was joking with O’Hara coach James Smith and asked Smith about doing the long jump.

“He told me I could do it as soon as I qualified (for the District 12 championships) in the hurdles,” Patrick recalled.

Patrick finally got his chance in the Catholic League’s fifth weekly meet of the season. He jumped 20 feet, 2 inches, to win the event. Two weeks later he leaped a personal best 22-7 to win the Catholic League title. A week after that he went 22-1½ to take third at the District 12 Class 3A champs and automatically qualify for the state meet.

“I guess I should have been jumping all along,” Patrick said. “It’s not too late to start.”

Patrick did not running medals in his first trip to Shippensburg. His best jump was 20-9½, which was good for 23rd,

“It’s good coming up there, getting to know what the competition is like and what it’s like living on a college campus,” Patrick said. “It’s good being part of this competition. It pushes you to be better.”

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Tony Graham’s run to a running medals came to an end in the semifinals of the 110-meter hurdles. The junior from Ridley finished sixth in his heat with a time of 14.95 seconds.

“I was nervous,” Graham said. “I heard the buzzer, but I don’t like the buzzer that they have and got out of the blocks slow.”

It was a disappointed end to the season, but a learning experience.

“You can’t win every race,” Graham said. “That just means that I have to come back stronger next year and do my best.”

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It would have been easy for Haverford’s Josh Fingerhut, Erik McCallion, Aiden Tomov and Brendan Campbell to be disappointed with their finish and time in the 4 x 800-meter relay. The Fords placed 11th in the 3A race at 8:00.25. That’s a second slower than they ran in Friday’s preliminary.

“We can’t be too upset,” Fingerhut said. “Our goal was to make states and get to the final. It would have been nice to running medals, but we accomplished our goal.”

Tomov, McCallion and Campbell are juniors. Fingerhut is a sophomore.

“The three juniors were here last year with James Abrahams and that helped us this year,” Campbell said. “We weren’t nervous because we’ve been here before.”

Tomov came back about an hour later in the 800, but that proved to be too much in too short a time. He finished 11th in 4:39.01.

“I may have to rethink about doing a double up here,” Tomov said.

Neumann-Goretti’s Kamil Jihad, a senior from Chester, came home with a gold running medals. He won the Class 2A 800 in 1:52.54. It was his third straight running medals in the event at the state meet. He was third as a junior and second as a sophomore.