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PHILADELPIA – The Good Counsel High School boys' distance medley relay team made history on Friday at the Penn Relays.

The Falcons' team of Thomas Tallerico, Courtland Harris, Fola Shokunbi and Kyle Graves came from behind to capture the Championship of America title with a time of 10 minutes, 9.6 seconds. Good Counsel's win marked the first time in 46 years a Maryland team won the distance medley at the Penn Relays, one of the nation's most prestigious track meets with a history that spans 116 years. The last state team to do it was Kenwood High of Essex, Md., in 1964.

Good Counsel distance coach Kevin Graves said the team came together by chance as the program was hoping to form a 3,200-meter relay team.

"Basically this team came together because we didn't know how it could work to have a [3,200 relay] team with one of the runners not being a true 800 [meter] runner," Kevin Graves said. "Kyle is a distance runner and Thomas and Fola both do middle distance. But this team had chemistry."

The Falcons' improvisation has worked to perfection ever since the indoor campaign. The same group ran 10:37 to qualify for the Nike Indoor Nationals in March. Although the team finished out of the top ten at that meet (10:23), the group had a good feeling about the future.

"We figured we would have a good day because we had in our head that we were going to run somewhere around 10:07," Kyle Graves said.

Tallerico started the race running the 1,200-meter leg. By the time he handed off to Harris, the Falcons were in fifth place after Tallerico moved up a number of places in the final 100 meters of his leg.

But Harris, who Good Counsel head coach Budd Crutchfield said "consistently runs 47 [seconds in the 400 meters]," didn't sweat the deficit.

"Honestly, I didn't think anybody that was in front of me could beat me or was faster," Harris said. "I felt like I couldn't lose."

By the time Shokunbi got the baton for the 800 leg, things really started to click for the Falcons, who were running in a neck-and-neck tie for second place. Perhaps what put Good Counsel over the top was the fact that Shokunbi ran a personal-best time in the 800. His split was 1:55, two seconds faster than his personal record, Crutchfield said.

Shokunbi held strong and kept the Falcons in second place when he handed the baton to Graves to run the final 1,600-meter leg, and Graves quickly seized the opportunity.

Just a few weeks ago at the Florida Relays, Graves ran 4:12 in the 1,600 meters. Graves trailed Otis Ubriaco of Liverpool High (N.Y.) by about 7 meters when he got the baton. But by the second lap, Graves had the lead for good.

On the final turn, Ubriaco pulled even with Graves but could not stay with him.

"I knew he was right behind me. He came up on me at the end and that was just motivation for me," Graves said.