Garber finishes first for W.X-Country

The Penn women's cross country team took second at Delaware. Rita Garber won her first collegiate race to lead the Penn women's cross country team to a second-place finish this weekend at the Delaware Invitational. "I was pleased with my performance this past weekend -- even though it wasn't a very large invitational. I'd never won a college cross country race before, so that was a major personal accomplishment to me," Garber said. The Quakers already had confidence in Garber's leadership abilities when she was chosen as captain for her senior year. Her first collegiate win this past weekend, however, consummates her career as a runner at Penn. The Quakers travelled to White Clay Creek State Park to compete in the Delaware Invitational, where the rivalry was strong between Penn and Columbia. Penn assistant coach Tony Tenisci felt the contest between Columbia and Penn was extremely evenly matched, as the Quakers only missed a victory by nine points. Garber's winning 5,000 meter time time was 18:24, 13 seconds faster than Columbia's Kara Kerr. "One of my specific goals was to beat the Columbia girl that finished a second in front of me last week at Lafayette," Garber said. Tenisci expressed his confidence that Garber is a strong number one for Penn. Garber's teammates were also very excited about her outstanding race. "Rita is an inspiration to us all," sophomore Meredith Rossner said. With Garber leading the pack, Penn's top five runners finished within the first 15 places. Freshman Katie Henderson finished seventh overall with a time of 19:21 to grab the number two spot on the team. Following closely behind for the third and fourth spots, junior Stephanie Bell finished 10th overall with a time of 19:24, and freshman Megan Curran finished 11th in 19:44. Locking in Penn's top five runners, freshman Susan Cook finished with a time of 19:44 to place 15th. "I thought they ran extremely well," Tenisci said. "In our first meet, they were trying to find where they were, but this past weekend they ran much better as a group." The team's enthusiasm for their improvement was also quite evident. "The team spread [time between the first and fifth runners] went down significantly. Last week, it was over two minutes and this week it was down to 1:20," junior Stephanie Bell said. In addition to the team's overall performance, there were significant individual accomplishments as well. Freshman Katie Henderson moved into the second spot on the team after her strong performance this weekend, which is significantly better than last week's performance. Despite the fact that the freshmen are showing very strong performances and the team is showing improvement as a whole, the Quakers know they must continue to improve. "The team stepped up and pulled together, but we still need to do more work to beat Columbia," Rossner said. Rita Garber had more specific details in mind. "We still have to work on getting our team spread down. We're definitely improving -- hopefully by the end of the season we'll get it down to 40 seconds," Garber said The Penn women's cross country team will continue to practice to prepare for the Rutgers Invitational this weekend. With the improvement of this past weekend as a premonition of what is to come, this young team has a lot to look forward to this season.