Every W.X-C runner places in top 20 of 48

The Penn women's cross country team clearly dominated this past weekend's Leopard Invitational at Lafayette with the entire team -- 10 runners -- placing within the race's top 20. Moravian's Tanya Wartman took the top spot, with a time of 18 minutes, 24 seconds, at this smaller, more localized, meet. The Quakers' runners, however, were able to hold down six of the top 10 positions and secure the team's first gold-place finish. Penn, with 25 points, easily surpassed the Pennsylvania competition from second-place Moravian (46 points), fourth-place Drexel (119) and fifth0place Lafayette (123). Penn also easily conquered New York representative Binghamton, which came in third place (87). With a time of 18:45, Penn junior Rita Garber continues to lead the Penn squad with a second-place showing in the 48-woman race. Crossing the line only 10 seconds behind Garber, senior captain Kristen Duyck ran her second best race of the season, placing third overall. The course at Lafayette was properly maintained, and the well-manicured course helped the Quakers' times in similar fashion to the Lehigh race two weekends ago. Duyck and Garber benefitted the most, breaking the 19-minute mark, with Duyck gaining only five seconds on her time. Sophomore Stephanie Bell, who came in fifth place (19:10), sophomore Leanne Shear, seventh place (19:21) and freshman Kimberly Winslow, eighth place (19:22), contributed Penn's final points. Senior Kristen Gregory, a consistent point scorer for Penn, fell to 13th place, a drop assistant coach Tony Tenisci attributes to the academic season. "The Ivy League is a really strong league in terms of competition," Garber said. "And so you get so used to that competition that you are never quite so sure what to expect when you are taken out of it. It was not the same caliber as what we have been racing against? but we definitely had to run well, nothing was given to us." Going in, the Red and Blue were wary of Moravian, but their fears were unfounded, aside from Wartman. Penn's solid finish packed its runners into the single digits, giving up only four top-10 spots to the competition, leaving a distance of 21 points between Penn and Moravian, its only concern. Penn will once again travel to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, N.Y. -- a familiar course from their first meet in early September -- to participate in the ECAC Regional Championships tomorrow. The team is looking forward to facing the mixed bag of competition there, before they are really put to the test against only the Ivies at the Heptagonal Championships coming up at the end of this month.