W.X-C only bests Columbia at Heps in New York City

The Penn women's cross country team fell below its expectations at this past weekend's Heptagonal Championships held at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, N.Y. The Quakers runners were making their third appearance on the New York City course, but familiarity did not help them against a strong wind and even stronger competition. The team, competing against the eight Ivy League schools and Navy, came in eighth, only beating Columbia by 54 points. Penn's five scoring runners earned 204 points, falling far behind cross country powerhouse and first place, Dartmouth (23 points). "We actually finished, in terms of team standing, about the way we had expected to," Quakers junior Rita Garber said. "We were hoping maybe we could have more of an upset but it did not happen. We weren't really disappointed. We were aiming to beat Columbia, which we did, and we would have liked to aim for Harvard also, but that did not happen." A disappointment for the Red and Blue was falling to fourth-place Yale (93) and seventh-place Harvard (150), two teams that Penn defeated at the beginning of the season on the same course. "We had beaten Harvard before, so we were a little disappointed that they had beaten us this time," Penn senior captain Kristen Duyck said. "Yale has improved a lot since our first race, and they have gotten a lot of attention because they have improved a lot since then, but Harvard, we could have gone more one-on-one with, but they beat us by more than 50 points," Garber said. Keeping with the trend, the Quakers were led by two of their three upperclassmen, Garber and Duyck. Garber, for the sixth consecutive meet, led Penn with a time of 19 minutes, 0.1 seconds, placing her 23rd overall, followed by Duyck (19:17.0), who placed 35th overall. Both lead women's times dropped almost 15 seconds since they last ran the course two weeks earlier. "We had hoped to do a little bit better individually," Duyck said. "Our times were faster at ECAC? two weeks before. For some reason all the times were slower this week than last time." "The times in general from all the races were slower," Garber said. "It was pretty nice weather, except it was a little windy. I was a little disappointed that my time was slower than the week before, but place-wise I was pretty much satisfied." The remaining point earners for Penn were freshman Jessica Hulse (19:33.0 -- 50th overall), senior Kristen Gregory (19:36.3 -- 52nd) and sophomore Leanne Shear (19:44.7 -- 55th). Shear continues to be an asset for Penn consistently placing within the top five since she was moved up to the varsity squad two meets ago. Penn was also hurt that one of its runners, sophomore Kristen Ryan, was unable to finish the race due to illness. "We did not come away feeling that everyone ran to their fullest potential," Garber said. "I do not think that we had everyone all on at once. We weren't as in unison as we have been in other races in the past."