Cross-country teams finish out season

Men put in personal best performance With nearly 300 runners crossing the finish line within one minute, things got too close for comfort Saturday at the IC4A regional men's cross country championships and national qualifier in Morven Park, Va. A controversy over whether race officials accurately timed and placed racers, including two Penn runners, marred the results which did not officially come out until late Saturday night after videotapes of the finish were reviewed. "There was a major controversy," Penn coach Charlie Powell said. "It was ridiculous." With a large volume of runners coming through the finish at the same time, results are easily confused according to assistant coach Nathan Taylor. "It's like Locust Walk when classes are changing," Taylor said. "There are that many people coming across the finish line at one time, it's incredible." With everything straightened out, every member of the Penn men's cross country team finished with a personal best time as the Quakers placed 19th overall to conclude their 1993 season. Junior co-captain Terry McLean was Penn's top finisher for the 6.2-mile course in 30 minutes 25 seconds – over 20 seconds faster than he has ever completed the same mileage on the trail or track. But in placing 36th, McLean was disappointed in his performance. "I was pleased how I ran in a way," McLean said. "But I was not pleased how I finished. It was one of the better races I've ever run, but I was upset how I finished relative to everyone else...It did not meet my and Coach's expectations." Rounding out the top five for Penn were fellow junior co-captain Joe Hall (81st, 31:05), junior Alvarez Symonette (105th, 31:24), sophomore Kurt Sprowls (106th, 31:25) and freshman Matt Wilkinson (120th, 31:34). According to McLean, the team approached the race with an ineffective strategy, which it formed after training on the course the weekend before. The Quakers had planned to start the race slowly to maintain pace and ensure a fast finish. "The whole race was so fast," McLean said. "It was shocking. We thought it was going to be slow, we expected people to fall off and they didn't. The top guys went out fast and stayed that way, and it really worked. This year's race was immensely more difficult than any other year I've run it." The strategy was apparently affected by the team's disappointing performance at the Heptagonals two weeks ago, when it went out too fast and did not finish strongly. "We should have gone out faster, but we were way too cautious because of Heps," McLean said. "But I can't say that we didn't give it everything that we had, we followed what we thought was the best thing to do." Although Powell was pleased with the team's performance, he felt there was room for improvement. "It was okay, nothing outstanding," Powell said. "They did a good job overall, they really did. Every one of our guys ran their best and Terry ran a very fine race, but we just need to get better to be competitors." In the most competitive region in the nation, McLean's time was 60 seconds away from qualifying as an individual for the national championships. With bids to the NCAAs going only to the top three teams, even Villanova – ranked fourth in the nation – missed the boat with its fourth place finish. It was the Quakers' goal to place between 10th and 15th and Powell attributed the team's actual finish several places behind this goal to a lack of experience. "We put this team together to be competitive," Powell said. "We found out that we were inexperienced and that made the difference. We lost five of our top seven runners last year and it's just hard to replace those people. It's been a learning experience."