M. X-Country finished 3rd

The Penn men's cross country team finished one point ahead of Cornell to place third at the Heptagonal Championships Saturday at Van Cortlandt Park in New York. Dartmouth took first place with 23 points, followed by Princeton with 93. The Quakers finished with 121. Last year, Penn took seventh place at the Heps. The team was tired, over-trained and not ready to race, according to co-captain Terry McLean. This year, the team was more prepared for the race, and expected to finish behind Dartmouth, but Princeton ran better than it had run all season. Penn beat Princeton at the Fordham Invitational earlier in the year, so the Quakers were not expecting to finish behind the Tigers. Dartmouth was untouchable, having five runners finish in the top 10. Joe Hall came in first place for Penn, 10th overall, with a time of 25 minutes, 50 seconds. Hall's personal best at the Heps came as a sophomore when he ran the course in 25:20. Finishing second for Penn, 16th overall, was McLean. Due to strained calf muscles, McLean was not as sharp as usual because he had not run for four days. "The team seemed pretty flat," he said. The hot weather conditions also made the times slower than normal. Hall got out in front of the pack, staying with the top 10 runners throughout the race. McLean, Matt Wilkinson and Kurt Sprowls stayed close through the first three miles around the 30th position. Wilkinson pulled ahead to move up to the 20th position at three miles. A little passed three miles, Sprowls passed McLean going up the hills in the middle of the race. Once on flatter ground, McLean bridged the gap between him and Wilkinson and eventually joined the pack. Going up the steepest hill in the race, referred to as "Cemetery Hill," Wilkinson passed McLean. The hill comes up four miles into the race, stretches for 100 meters, and is at a slope of approximately 45 degrees. "It is a nightmare of a hill," McLean said. "The hills beat me up all the time," Wilkinson said. He attributed his lack of performance to his body not responding when he needed to pass other runners. "I didn't have a good middle race," he said. Coming down from that final incline, McLean passed Wilkinson, and then another runner in the final 10 meters to take 16th place with a time of 26:03. Had he not passed that runner, the team would have tied Cornell for fourth place. "As a team, I don't think we've run to what our potential is yet," Wilkinson said.