Recovered W. X-C looks for consistency

Today in New York's Van Cortlandt Park, the Penn women's cross country team faces its biggest challenge of the year -- the Heptagonal Championships. The Quakers will face all of the Ivy League schools as well as Navy. Not only will the Heps determine the league champion, but it will be an indication of the progress the Quakers have made this season. It has been a rough season for the team. At the beginning of the year, the Quakers suffered from numerous injuries and illnesses and were never able to run at full strength. Their biggest deficit was the absence of team captain and leader Michelle Belsley. Although her absence allowed younger members to step up, the team really lacked unity without Belsley. Penn struggled to create strong packs, but has not been consistent in competition. In one race, the Quakers would have one or two front runners and then a distant, but strong, middle pack. The next race, Penn would be successful in moving that pack up, but the front runners would have slowed down. Finally, at both the Lafayette and Lehigh invitationals, Penn succeeded in doing both, and the top five Quakers finishers were all within at least 25 seconds of one another. At its last meet at Navy, Penn's strong pack fell apart at the end. In the last two weeks, Penn has concentrated on building speed and endurance, as well as a pack mentality. They have, however, been tapering their practices so that they are not overworked. The Quakers are familiar with the course and have successfully implemented their race strategy against some of these teams before. The runners who consistently finish at the top for Penn -- Kristen Duyck, Kacy Corbett, Rita Garber, Stephanie Bell, Kristen Gregory, Lorie Roth and Anita Kumar -- will all counted on to step up so that they can run in a close pack.