Heading into Wolf & Kettle Invitational, Costanza calls W.X-Ca 'stronger team'

Maybe last week's Fordham Fiasco Invitational seemed appropriately named to other schools, but certainly not for the Penn women's cross country. Penn had four top-20 finishes last week, an achievement second only to Brown at the meet. What is equally impressive is that this team of 14 women has only five returning runners, including junior Rita Garber, who placed sixth out of 152 runners in a time of 19 minutes, 10 seconds. Penn coach Betty Costanza was "pleasantly surprised by last week's performance" and had only praise for the team's freshman runners. In her 22 years as cross country coach at Penn, Costanza has invaluable experience, and she already can see this team is "one of the stronger (Penn) teams in the last four years." Judging from last week's performance, the team looks well-poised to make a good showing in its first-ever race at the Wolf and Kettle Invitational at Loyola (Ill.). Penn assistant coach Tony Tenisci, who echoed Costanza's praise for their hardworking athletes, was cautiously optimistic about Penn's chances on Saturday. Both coaches expect the upperclassmen on the team to "lead from the front and provide an example for the freshmen to follow." For the coaches, high expectations are the norm since the team has been "one of the winningest teams for women at Penn," according to Costanza. The results of the past few years speak for themselves. In 1992, a runner named Kris Lundy was 13th in the nation, an academic All-American and the NCAA Woman of the Year. Just last fall, Garber finished among the top 20 in four out of the seven meets in which she participated. There is no doubt that this year's team has a reputation to uphold, but the runners have shown their commitment and believe in themselves. As the Quakers prepare to leave for Illinois this weekend, they know from last week at Fordham that they can run with the best and win. If Penn performs well at Loyola, coaches Costanza, Tenisci and Cricket Batz Shaklee may be in for a few more pleasant surprises.