Track teams overcome weather

Men qualify many more for IC4A "It was OK." That was Penn men's indoor track coach Charlie Powell's simple evaluation of the Quakers' performance this past weekend. The event, held Saturday and Sunday at Harvard's Gordon Track, was the Greater Boston Track Classic. "It was alright in that we had all those IC4A qualifiers, but I guess I just hold this team to a higher standard," Powell added. Indeed, Penn produced eight IC4A-qualifying performances in Boston. Leading the way was the lone first-place finish for the Quakers -- a win in the 4x800-meter relay. Freshmen Neil Riordan and Jim Primerano and juniors Geoffrey Willard and Josh Kahn raced to a winning time of 7:43.42. "Coach Powell told us earlier in the week that the main goal for us was to run fast and not worry about our placing and qualify for the IC4As," Primerano said. "Neil put us in second. We pretty much stayed in second the whole race and we started moving up on the Seton Hall team. And near the end of the race we went ahead. I'm happy with our performance and I think the other guys are too. But I think we have the potential to run faster." Perhaps the event in which the Quakers performed best was the pole vault. Senior Mamadou Johnson placed second ("He actually got beat, that's a surprise," Powell said.) with a vault of 16-11, and sophomore Greg Schroeder was third at 15-5. Both efforts were good enough to qualify for the IC4As. Several other Penn athletes put forth qualifying efforts. Senior Henry Hipps finished third in the high jump with a jump of 6-9.5. Sophomore Chris Harper's time of 22.26 seconds in the 200-meter dash was good for another third place finish. Senior Kelsey Armstrong placed fifth in the 500-meter run with a time of 1:04.9. The 4x400-meter relay team of Armstrong, Carl Eklof, Clive Brown and Harper ran sixth at 3:21.99. Penn scored eight IC4A qualifiers. But Powell was left a little frustrated at what might have been. "A lot of the guys were flat," Powell said. The coach cited the way the meet was run as a possible reason for the lack of energy. According to Powell, with over 2,000 athletes competing, the schedule of events fell behind by as much as an hour. After these delays, the Quakers had a hard time warming up properly. However, Powell then stated what his team has to do to improve. "They've got to be aggressive as hell, and right now they haven't been," Powell said. "They have to realize that just because you've won the championship three years in a row, people aren't going to roll over for you. They have to get focused as to what their main goal is, which is winning the Heptagonals."