At Heps, W.X.-C finishes in next-to-last place

Finishing in 19:02,Finishing in 19:02,Belsle and Garber tiedFinishing in 19:02,Belsle and Garber tiedfor 40th place overall. The Penn women's cross country team didn't know quite what to think about its eighth-place finish at the Heptagonal Championship on Friday. Finishing in second-to-last place, the Quakers did end up one place better than last year. But despite the poor results, they felt as if they successfully executed their race strategy. "The race went out hard and never let up," Penn junior Linda Packard said. "We hadn't seen that level of competition since the Paul Short Invitational [three weeks ago], but we responded well as individuals, and the pack held together. We've been trying all season long to create a tight front pack, and we finally put that into practice this week." The team looked to senior captain Michelle Belsley to lead the team out strong and depended on sophomore Rita Garber to follow Belsley's lead. Such a start would inevitably create a strong pack. Belsley and Garber did not let their teammates down. They began the race at a quick pace and refused to let their teammates fall behind. Belsley and Garber finished in a tie for 40th place out of 75 runners with times of 19 minutes, two seconds. Although Belsley placed ninth at last year's Heps, she and Garber both beat their best times of this season by at least 25 seconds. Following such a strong lead, the team was able to create a faster pack than it had all season. Freshman Stephanie Bell was the next Penn finisher, coming in 46th place, 15 seconds behind her two teammates. Kacy Corbett finished soon after that, and was followed by juniors Kristen Duyck and Kirsten Gregory. Freshman Anita Kumar, senior Lorie Roth and Packard brought up the rear for Penn. "The race was better than last year, and the pack really stayed tight," Corbett said. "Everyone made a great effort to work together, and this is obvious by how close we finished. Michelle and Rita were good at taking it out hard, and the rest of the team followed." Every Penn veteran improved upon their time from last year's Heps. The freshmen, too, ran faster than they had in races earlier this season. That improvement is particularly impressive since the course in New York's Van Cortlandt Park that hosts the Heps is known for being particularly slow. It has a lot of hills and inclines that usually create poor times. The only problem, it seems, was Penn's competition. Dartmouth (28 points), which captured its third consecutive Heps title, was ranked No. 5 in the nation last week. The Big Green was followed by a Princeton team (77) that seemed unshaken by the graduation of its top two runners. On the other hand, Penn (222) has been daunted by inexperience all season. "It's hard to know what to say. We came in next-to-last place, but we still did better than last year," Garber said. "As a team, we did better -- our times were faster -- than last year. We all had good races, but we didn't place that well. What's important is that people felt better about their races."