M. Track splits squad over weekend

A Tale of Two Cities, the title from Charles Dickens' famous novel, fits this weekend's men's track action as well as a pair of Nike Air Huaraches. The Quakers split up, sending their top three athletes to Tennessee, while the rest of the squad remained in Philadelphia and competed at Franklin Field in the Penn Invitational. "The meet in Tennessee was a national-caliber meet and we could only get a couple of guys entered," coach Charlie Powell said. "We gave the guys that were close to qualifying for nationals a shot to compete against the top competition." The opportunity proved very valuable to the Quakers. Junior Clarence Hinton scored a fifth-place finish in the discus with a throw of 167 feet. All-American John Taylor contributed to Penn's efforts with an impressive throw of 221 feet in the javelin. "I was happy with the big meet experience as a whole," Hinton said. "I had a little trouble adjusting from the smaller home and league meets. Truthfully, I was a little disappointed with my marks." Sophomore Chris Harper was most impressive. In the 400-meter run, he came across the line in 46.90 seconds, good for second place. The man who finished ahead of Harper was Calvin Davis from Arkansas, the national champion in the 400 during the indoor season. At home, Penn used the weekend to rest some of the guys who were banged up and to give some of the younger guys a chance to get a little action while playing around with the lineup. The star of the weekend was novice Henry Addo, Powell said. He won the 200-meter run with a time of 21.74, which qualified him for the IC4As May 21. In the 100, an event in which he had previously qualified for IC4As, Addo won. Teammate Greg Davis came a close second, only a tenth of a second behind. "I have been out of track for three years and I just came back so I didn't expect much," Addo said. "I'm just taking it one step at a time." Polishing off the performance, Addo ran the leadoff leg of the 4x100 relay. He teamed with co-captain Kelsey Armstrong, and juniors Mark Pan and Eric Thompson to give Penn a second-place finish. What made the place unexpected was they are not the Quakers' usual four relay members, with Thompson running for the first time. Another relay thrown together by the coaches was the 4x400. The freshmen team of John Miller, James Primerano and John Yu along with Thompson ran for a combined time that would win the league. Two other freshmen had notable meets. Neil Riordan had a personal best in the 1,500 while Josh Dienes, a wrestler in the winter, got second in the shot put. "Most of the guys had a great time competing," Powell said. "It was a time to enjoy track and field. It was really fun to watch." Penn has two more weeks to have fun before the season really starts for most of the guys. If it is up them, they would like to be split up then too, with the unlucky ones going home and the others going to George Mason for IC4As.