Sports Briefs: Thursday, April 23, 1998

McMullen wins decathlon at Relays Second after the first day of competition, McMullen moved ahead in the opening event yesterday, the 110 meter hurdles. The Western Michigan star then finished first in the discuss throw (48.6 meters) to solidify his lead. With the title already all but wrapped up, McMullen also won the final event, the 1,500 meter run, in a time of 4:16.68. First day leader Jeremy Culver of Kutztown faded in the final five events and dropped to 11th place overall. James Cook of Penn State, last year's winner, finished second with 7,476 points. Penn's Eric Hyde had another strong day at Franklin Field, finishing fourth overall with 7,215 points. After setting a number of personal bests on the first day of competition, Hyde opened the morning yesterday by winning the 110 meter hurdles with a time of 15.04 seconds. Hyde was not the top Ivy League finisher, however, as Dartmouth's Greg Johnson outscored him by 68 points to capture third. -- Josh Callahan Va. Tech's Ollendick wins womens' heps After leading through five events, Virginia Tech's Katie Ollendick needed a dramatic finish in the 800 meter run to pull a come from behind victory in the college women's heptathlon at the Penn Relays yesterday. Ollendick scored 5,378 points in the seven events. Christi Smith of Akron was second, 164 points behind. Ollendick won the first event, the 100 meter hurdles, on the way to a comfortable day one lead. That advantage evaporated, though, when Smith dominated Ollendick in the long jump and javelin, yesterday's first two events. Those two wins left Smith with a 25-point lead heading into the 800 meter run. Smith's time of 2:27.13 was sixth best overall and scored 729 points. Ollendick, meanwhile, scorched the field with a time of 2:13.19, scoring a whopping 918 points. Ollendick's time was more than 10 seconds better than anyone else in the competition. -- J.C. Penn announces new Hall of Fame honorees Penn announced the selection of the second class of its Athletic Hall of Fame yesterday. The class of 1998 will include 42 members, adding to the 46 members of last year's inaugural class. "I think this second class of inductees is equally significant, dignified and talented," search committee chairperson Ed Fabricius said in a statement yesterday. Included in the group is current Athletic Director Steve Bilsky. The 1971 basketball team of which Bilsky was a leader is one of the greatest Quakers hoops teams of all time. Chuck Daly, the coach of the 1979 Final Four squad, will also be inducted. Bilsky will stand alongside one of his current coaches, Fencing's Dave Micahnik, who graduated from Penn in 1959. One soon-to-be hall-of-famer, Chris Flynn, is still tearing up the field in the National Lacrosse League. Flynn plays for the Philadelphia Wings, which has advanced to this weekend's championship series. -- J.C. W. Lax dropped by Princeton in N.J. The Penn women's lacrosse team faced its sixth top 15 team of the season as it traveled to No. 6 Princeton's Lourie-Love Field. The Quakers were unable to execute its game plan against a strong Princeton (10-2, 5-0) team, losing by a score of 19-4. The Quakers (4-8, 2-4 Ivy League), fell to 0-6 against these ranked teams, however, with the loss to the two-time defending league champions. The Quakers -- who are losers of their last five -- were overmatched by the older, and more experienced Tigers. "Princeton came out strong," Penn coach Anne Sage said. "It was like a hurricane hit us." In the night game at the Tigers facilities in New Jersey, the Quakers fell behind early. Jen Alexander scored for Princeton 3:45 into the game to begin the scoring. Just 38 seconds later, Tigers teammate Julie Shaner scored their second goal. "We couldn't match up. They outhustled us and played very physical." Sage said. "You have to give credit to them -- they played a great game of lacrosse." Penn notched its first goal two minutes later, at the 6:02 mark, to get within one. But the rest of the first half was a shootout for the Princeton squad. In the next twenty minutes the Tigers scored 10 goals, while the Quakers only got on the board one more time in the half. Cristi Samaras, the Tigers leading scorer with five goals, scored three in the half. The first came 10 minutes into the game. The last two came within 29 seconds of each other. In the second half, the Tigers outscored the Quakers 7-2. Senior co-captains Darah Ross and Emily Hansel both notched goals for the Quakers. Penn wraps up its season at home Sunday versus Brown. -- Andrew McLaughlin