M. Track surprises in Boston

The Penn men's indoor track team may not have found love at the St. Valentine's Invite Sunday at Boston University, but it certainly liked the results. The Quakers came in second in the event behind Penn State. The Nittany Lions won 82-79, a finish that left Penn coach Charlie Powell pleased. "I'm real happy with the fact that the guys were really competitive," Powell said. "Maybe it was the fact that Penn State was there, but they were really fired up." Several Quakers were fired up enough to post first-place performances. Freshman Randy Simmons scored a personal-best in the triple jump with a leap of 47 feet, seven inches. "It felt pretty good," Simmons said. "I hope to do better at Heps. It didn't feel perfect, but it felt pretty good." In the 35-pound weight, junior Clarence Hinton uncorked a winning toss of 59-1.25, less than a foot short of qualifying for Nationals. Also, sophomore Clive Brown won the 400-meter dash in 49.0 seconds, while sophomore Aric Shalev and senior Henry Hipps tied for first in the high jump at 6-11. And Powell noted that the Quakers had a "heck of a lot of second place finishers." But the effort that may have excited Powell the most came in the 4x400-meter relay. After the leadoff runner fell down, the Quaker hopes for a win evaporated. But, Powell said, instead of "cruising around and accepting it," the final three runners ran hard enough to catch one of the other teams. "Fantastic. That epitomizes what this group's all about," Powell said. "That's one of the key factors that's going to help us at Heps." This was the squad's final meet before the conference championship meet, the Heptagonals. Powell felt good about his team's chances for the title, but he admitted they could be better. "We're a good team." Powell said. "But we could be better if we hadn't lost those two weeks [due to the bad weather]." Penn is accepting and adjusting to the weather problems, Powell added. "Are we as sharp as Princeton? No," he said. "Will we be as sharp as them at Heps? No. We won't do well in some events because we haven't been able to practice them." But not even Mother Nature could snow on the Quakers' Valentine's Day gift.