MacMillan paces M.X-Country

The team that runs together wins together. This past Saturday, the Penn men's cross country team garnered top honors at the Delaware Invitational by taking charge of the race from the start. "We kept together and basically made it into a three-mile race," Penn captain Scott Clayton said. Freshman Matt Gioffre believes the team running in a pack early in the race was beneficial. "It must have been frustrating for the other teams to see seven Penn guys in the lead through the two-mile point," Gioffre said. This weekend's victory marked a one spot improvement from last week's second place finish at the Navy Quadrangle. On their way to victory, the Penn runners edged out Ivy rival Columbia by two points, 27 to 29. For the second consecutive week, junior Sean MacMillan paced the Penn squad by finishing the five-mile distance in 26:12. Close behind him were Clayton and sophomore Bryan Kovalsky, with times of 26:16 and 26:23, respectively. These top three efforts earned the Quakers third, fourth and fifth places. According to both Clayton and MacMillan, the decisive effort in Saturday's contest came from junior Mark Granshaw. He passed three runners in the final mile to secure Penn's margin of victory with a 26:43 time, which earned him eighth place. "Mark was in a position to step up and to be the man, and he did it," said Penn coach Charlie Powell. Gioffre finished seventh, and his fellow first-year runner Anthony Ragucci came in 13th in only their second college race. While finishing ahead of the other eight teams at the race was an accomplishment, the Quakers take most pride in edging out Columbia. The Lions were fresh off the heals of a first-place finish in the Lafayette Invitational on September 12. "It was nice to beat a team that was definitely confident," Clayton said. "It's time for us to become contenders rather than a team on the outside looking in." The list of Quakers atop the results sheet this past weekend was quite similar to the list from last week's race at Navy. Powell agreed that the "group of four up front" seems to be solidifying. Clayton, MacMillan, Kovalsky and Gioffre are set to lead the squad. "We have a bunch of guys that can step up every week. Jay [junior Jason Greene], Mark Granshaw and John Horrocks can all be big factors," Powell said. There were significant differences between the victory at Delaware and the runner-up finish at Navy. "This week, we kept everybody's head together," Clayton said. "Some people went out too fast at Navy." Powell thinks that the team's relative youth played a role in coming out slower at the first meet. The Quakers are a young team, as no senior played a prominent role in this weekend's victory. The team is enthusiastic about the chance of improving as the year goes on. "Most of our times can get much better. Once we start doing some speed work, we'll get even faster," MacMillan, whose times have led the team thus far, said. Powell is optimistic about the team's chances for improvement, but he estimates that the time to do some real speed work is still far off. "Winning an invitational or beating a team that you maybe aren't supposed to beat, these are just small steps," Powell said. The long-distance specialists of Penn's cross country team are very preoccupied with steps right now, a whole bunch of steps. "The younger guys should be running about 75 to 85 miles a week," Powell said. "The older guys aim for 80 to 100. It sounds like a whole lot for normal people." The members of men's cross country have no meet this coming weekend, but they never have a weekend off.