M. Track on course after home Invite

Sprinter Greg Davis led a number of improving Quakers witha time of 10.69 seconds in the 100-meter dash. By Ronnie Roy It was cold and raining. It was an unscored meet. It was early in the season. These were all points the Penn men's track team could have used as excuses on Sunday. However, excuses weren't necessary as the Quakers showed up in full force at Franklin Field for the University of Pennsylvania Invitational. With personal and team pride on the line, Penn competed well in the meet and took a solid step forward in the progression of the season. The Quakers enjoyed an overall strong team performance led by individual showcases of brilliance. The clinic started early in the sprint events. The 100-meter dash was taken over by Quakers, as they placed five sprinters in the top-10 finishers. The best Penn finisher in this event was re-emerging senior Greg Davis. Davis came in second with a time of 10.69 seconds, shaving two-tenths of a second off of his season-best time. He also finished second in the 200-meter dash and ran an incredible 48.2-second split for the first-place 1,600-meter relay squad. "Greg, in his last season, has really stepped up and picked up a lot slack for the team," Penn coach Charlie Powell said. "This season he has run everything from the 55 [yard dash] to legs in the 4x400 relay." The outstanding performances kept coming with sophomore Robin Martin a prime example. Martin won the highly contested 400-meter dash in a time of 48.24 seconds, a mere five-hundredths of a second better than his competition. Martin,disappointed about his time, came back with a strong leg in the 4x400 relay, running his split in a little over 47 seconds. "Our guys showed a lot of heart out there," Powell said. "In track, you always have to come out on top and our athletes have been able to dig deep down and do just that." The heart also kept coming from the Quakers' athletes, as shown by the performance of junior Paolo Frescura. Coming off of serious leg injuries which forced him to take some time off, Frescura ran a tremendous personal record of 3:50.37 in the 1,500-meter run. Frescura's time was good enough for fourth place in a field of excellent middle distance runners. "Paolo is finally starting to come into his own now," Quakers assistant coach Nathan Taylor said. "He has shaken off injuries and has developed into one of the top runners in the East, as shown by his impressive finish." Other Penn athletes came through with stellar performances as well. Junior Lucas Deines won the hammer throw with a hurl of 190 feet, three inches, which is a personal record. Freshman Bobby Reynolds and senior Dan Short also came up big in the pole vault as they both leapt 4.85 meters and finished first and second, respectively. Both Reynolds and Short qualified for the IC4A individual championships at Fairfax, Va., in late May. Despite the vast number of excellent performances, there was one dark cloud for Penn other than those provided by nature. The 400-meter hurdle squad did not compete to their usual standard. The best finisher of the squad finished in a dismal eighth place. "The 400-meter hurdlers could have done much better," Taylor said. "They know what they can do and I'm sure they will improve in the weeks to come." The Quakers used the meet as a stepping stone and turned in strong performances. The Quakers are gearing up for the scored portion of the season and this particular meet was necessary in order to work out all of the little problems. With most things in order at this point, Penn is now ready to take on rival Princeton in its first scored meet next weekend, the first real test of the outdoor season.