M. X-C finishes fifth at Spike Shoe Invit.

If the Quakers were investing in Wall Street, Saturday was 1929 and the rest of the season should be the 1980's. At the Spike Shoe Invitational last Saturday at Penn State, the Penn men's cross country team came in fifth place with 90 points finishing behind Penn State (54), Pittsburgh (58), Lehigh (76) and St. Joseph's(76). "We just didn't run well enough, we really didn't. Teams beat us that shouldn't have. We were upset" junior co-captain Joe Hall said. "We can't do much worse," added fellow junior co-captain Terry McLean. "We definitely have to improve. A lot of guys are not putting on the race course what they do in practice. We are not running as a team, everyone is out on their own." The team goal was to place Hall and McLean in the top 10 and keep the rest of the team together as a pack for the first miles of the race. McLean was Penn's top runner for the 5.3-mile course with a fifth-place finish in 26 minutes 31 seconds. McLean's teammates lauded his performance, but he and Penn coach Charlie Powell felt that he could have won the race. "I didn't run a very smart race, I went out in the top 10 and I took the lead, but I took it too early and got caught up in things," McLean said. "I'm going to go back to racing my style – I'm in better shape than I've ever been. I need to use my advantage – my strength. [Other runners] are more talented than I am. I'll have to outrace them." Freshman Matt Wilkinson was another standout at the Invitational. In his first five-mile race ever, he came in as Penn's sixth man in 27:39, only four seconds off the next best time. "I've got a lot of plans for Matt," said Powell of Penn's most promising newcomer. "[Matt] did exactly what he was told," McLean said. "He should be commended more than anyone else on the team because if everyone listened to coach and ran like he did – things would be different." Rounding out Penn's top five were Hall (26:53) and sophomores Kurt Sprowls (27:27), Jack McMullan (27:32), and Alvarez Symonette (27:35). As the team looks towards this Saturday's race, it does not expect to make any fundamental changes. Although the Quakers finished a close second at the Spike Shoe Invitational last year, Saturday's results were not completely unanticipated. "We are definitely more of a late-season team," Hall said. "This is the first race that could tell us where we were. Right now it's pretty much what I expected. There are a couple of people who should be up there that are not." The team plans to continue with intensive mileage training to prepare for the Paul Short Invitational on October 9 and hopes to use next Friday's meet with Princeton, Army, and Manhattan to give this very young Penn squad more experience. Strength, endurance and drive are the important advantages the Quakers have to match the talent of other top teams as they head further along in the season. Because Penn's training style emphasizing strength rather than speed is so different from their competitors, the first meets are not an adequate barometer of the Quaker's eventual success. "All the people on the team have to believe in what we are doing now so it will pay off at the end of the season," Hall said. If all goes as planned, the ticker tape will be flying come November.