Men's track drowns at IC4As

The Quakers could not repeat their emotional Heptagonal performance, despite personal bests from senior Greg Davis in the 100-meter dash and junior Eric Hyde in the decathalon. Coach Charlie Powell best summed up the performance of the Penn men's track team at this past weekend's IC4A Outdoor Track and Field Championships when he said "We had our worst meet of the year here." Their disappointing finish begs the question of why everything went so unexpectedly. Penn was coming off of a monstrous victory at the Heptagonal Championships two weeks before in which the Quakers had scored in nearly every event at the meet. At the IC4As, Penn scored 17 points, not quite one-tenth of the points they got at the Heptagonals, and managed these points in just five events. Their point total left them in twentieth place in the IC4As. "We put so much emotion into the [Heptagonal] Championship and afterwards it almost became anticlimactic to be here," Powell said. "That, and the weather didn't help. In some of the speed events, it really showed." The weather consisted of driving showers all day on Sunday which chased away the hot, humid Saturday. Nowhere were the affects of the weather more apparent than in the triple jump. Dan Nord, who won that event at the Heptagonals and thus chose to concentrate on making the NCAA qualifying length at IC4As, nearly injured himself on the wet runway. After slipping on his first run as he planted to jump, his knee buckled on his second try as he once again attempted to plant his foot for a leap into the pit. Shaken, he failed to qualify with his last attempt. "He's a speed jumper, and it being wet out there just hurt him. It's not fun when the weather has to be such a big factor," Powell said. One sprinter who seemed unaffected by the soggy conditions and emotionally-geared for the meet, was senior captain Greg Davis. Despite a strained hamstring, he blazed to a personal record 10.49 seconds in Saturday's 100-meter dash. Were it not for the slight injury, he could have neared the NCAA qualifying mark of 10.40 seconds. "I don't think I finished quite as strong as I would have if my leg wasn't bothering me. It's a little disappointing, but I'm happy with the PR yesterday. The PR's definitely going to be one of my best memories about Penn," Davis said after the meet. There were other bright spots to remember. In the 4x100-meter relay, Davis anchored the Quakers to a strong fourth-place finish in 41.00 seconds, a seasons' best. This time came despite the loss of Henry Addo, who was replaced capably by Nord. When Davis wasn't involved, points were harder to come by for Penn. The other banner individual performer for Penn was Eric Hyde, who scored a personal best 7,039 points to finish fourth in the decathlon. The score places him fourth all-time at Penn. Stan Anderson finished tied for fifth in the high jump, and John Linhart tied for seventh place in the pole vault. But was the Quakers' persistent inability to place which left the most bitter memories. Penn was forced to withdraw its competitive 4x400-meter relay team because of Davis' hamstring problem and tightness in the hip flexor of sophomore Robin Martin. Martin had other problems at the IC4A meet when he did run. His time in the 400-meter dash was solid enough, but he was disqualified for stepping on one of the lane lines. He will have a chance to redeem himself at the NCAA Championships in Bloomington, Ind., where he will shoot for the 800-meter title in two weeks. "It's kind of nice to do something for Penn. I'm going to give it everything and see what happens," Martin said. "I think he's got a fairly good chance of making it into the finals. He went into this weekend with the sixth fastest time," Powell said. As bad a meet as it was for Penn's team, Powell saw an important lesson for the Quakers. "You can't base your entire season on one race. Yeah, we want to do well in the Heps and we'd like to be able to repeat next year, but the stuff goes on and on," he said. "There's IC4As, there's nationals," he added. "You've got to focus in on that whole last month, not just that one weekend."