Cross-country teams finish out season

Women finish 20th at ECACs This weekend's women's cross country meet in Leesburg, Va., could have been filled with tears of senior runners competing in their final collegiate race. Fortunately for the seniorless Penn team, its eyes remained dry, as this weekend – although serving as the official end of the 1993 season – served as a precursor of things to come in 1994. The Quakers finished their 1993 campaign Saturday in the ECAC Championships hosted by George Mason University at Morven Park. Penn finished a respectable 20th out of 28 teams in its division. The ECACs are used to determine which schools will represent the east in the NCAA Championships November 22. The top two schools in each division receive bids as well as several others schools that are given at-large bids by the NCAA committee. National powerhouse Villanova easily won the meet, placing the top three runners. Cornell and Georgetown finished second and third. Princeton, which the Quakers had split two meets with earlier in the season, placed eighth. "We did pretty well," sophomore Melanie Gesker said. "Although we didn't do as well as we hoped, we ran like we had all season." Junior Bridget Ward and junior co-captain Maggie Morrow were the first Quakers to cross the finish line. Respectively, they finished 68th and 69th in times of 18 minutes and 32 seconds each. Ward and Morrow have been consistently finishing near the top all year due to their hard work and dedication. Junior Jane Kim (101st, 18:48) and sophomore Mary Conway (118th, 19:01) were the next two Quakers to finish the 3.1-mile race. The fifth and last Quaker to score was Gesker, finishing 124th in a personal record time of 19:09. "I was just really prepared both mentally and physically," Gesker said. "We had rested all this week and I think I went out on a good note." Junior Jenee Anzelone, who usually is able to run near the top, finished a disappointing 133rd (19:15). "The team did okay," Anzelone said. "I didn't. I just ran a really bad race." Particularly, the accomplishments of sophomores Gesker and Conway should be noted. Although it is often difficult for freshmen and sophomores to deal with the magnitude of such an important meet, these two runners shined. Conway had said that she was a little overwhelmed at the Paul Short Invitational earlier in the year, but it is obvious by her performance this weekend that she has matured by leaps and bounds since then. Considering there are no seniors on this team, the future looks bright. Not only will Conway and Gesker be back next year to accompany juniors Morrow, Ward, Kim and Anzelone, but junior Tracie Johnson, who had to sit this year out due to injury, hopes to return as well. So even though the Quakers finished 20th out of 28 teams, there were no tears shed for Penn knows that it will have everyone back next year.