W. X-Country falls short of expectations at ECAC champs

With the Penn women's cross country team it seems that Rita Garber can't count on anyone but herself. The women's cross country team competed in the ECAC Championships last weekend at Van Cortland Park in New York, where it placed ninth out of 12 teams. The Quakers' team performance should not take away from Garber's extraordinary race. She finished the course in 18 minutes, 6.9 seconds to place her fifth out of 83 runners. This was her fourth top-five finish in five races this year. "I exceeded my expectations," Garber said. "I came from behind because I had challenging people to push me." Virginia won the meet by accumulating a total of 63 points. The Cavaliers' top five runners all placed within the first 23 spots, with an average time of 18:15.2. In comparison, the Quakers only had one runner in the first 37 places, with an average time of 19:22.0. Also beating Penn were Ivy League rivals Cornell (second), Princeton (third) and Yale (seventh). These three teams were the only other Ivies at the competition. Yale's Kelly Ariana won the race with a time of 17:41.5. Being named all-ECAC shows that Garber's accomplishments certainly do not go unnoticed. Garber is truly a self-made winner. She started out on the team as a walk-on and now she is the strongest number one runner that Penn has seen in a while. "A star is born." Penn assistant coach Tony Tenisci said. "We haven't had such a great runner since 1992 when Chris Lundy was an All-American." Placing second for Penn and 38th overall, junior Stephanie Bell finished with a time of 19:00.0. Freshman Katie Henderson placed 56th, completing the course in 19:31.7. Sophomores Meredith Rossner and junior Susan Lockman finished the race with times of 20:03.7 and 20:08.0, respectively, placing them 65th and 70th overall. Closing up the Quaker's top seven, freshmen Susie Cook and Samantha Desposito finished in the 72nd and 76th spots. Penn was unable to continue its improvement of the team spread -- which is the time between the first and fifth runners -- this week, as the spread was almost three minutes. This can be compared to earlier in the season when it was only 1:13. While Tenisci declined to comment on Penn's performance as a whole, Garber offered an explanation for the rough day. "There were many people feeling under the weather. It hurt us, but there was nothing that we could've done about it," Garber said. The Quakers are hoping that their return to Van Cortland Park on October 30 to race in the Heptagonal Championships ends with better results than this past weekend. Penn will face Navy and all the Ivy schools to determine their standing in the Ivy League.