A distant second for W.X-Cat Wolf & Kettle

The Penn women's cross country team once again earned the silver medal this weekend after falling behind a dominant Marquette team. The Penn women flew to Chicago last Saturday to compete in the Wolf & Kettle Invitational, hosted by Loyola (Ill.). Penn's top five runners earned 69 points for the team, a gaping 51 points behind Marquette. The other participating teams, Loyola and Butler, followed close behind Penn with 73 and 75 points, respectively. The Quakers were once again led by junior Rita Garber, who came in sixth among 47 runners. At last week's Fiasco Invitational, Garber also came in sixth, but at this week's meet she managed to shave 17 seconds off her time. She crossed the finish line in 18 minutes, 53 seconds -- 64 seconds behind Marquette's Amy Erickson, the eventual winner. Also earning points for Penn were captain Kristen Duyck (19:18), junior Kristen Gregory (19:23), freshman Kimberly Winslow (19:33) and freshman Meredith Rossner (19:47), respectively, placing 13th, 15th, 18th and 21st overall. "We had hoped to do better," Duyck said. "But the travel took its toll on us." The team left Saturday morning, but the two-hour delay on the plane at the Philadelphia Airport, the two-hour flight and then the traffic upon reaching Chicago, had an effect on the runners preparing for the race that afternoon. "We did not expect Marquette to place as high as they did," Duyck said. "We expected it to be closer between all four teams, as opposed to Marquette just doing really well." Marquette captured the win by placing seven of its runners in the top 10, including securing first through fourth place. Despite accounting for 70 percent of the top 10, only five of these runners were needed for the point total. Penn is keeping its times consistent -- most of the point-earners only varied 10 seconds or less off of last week's time. This consistency is keeping the team just out of the spotlight -- it is looking for a boost to shorten its times by mere seconds and secure the gold.