Finn, Reina, lead 'DP' awards

Caramanico, Ortman and Gymnastics also honored in annual picks. · The obvious choice for Team of the Year, a new category this year, is the football team. Among the handful of league champions in 1998, it by far brought out the most school spirit. The team's 41-10 destruction of Harvard on November 14 brought on a festive celebration and the tossing of another unsuspecting goalpost into the Schuykill River. But our actual award as the No. 1 Team of the Year goes to the far less recognized but equally deserving women on the gymnastics team. Led by NCAA Northeast Regional Gymnast of the Year Kathleen Gunn, the team set six school records on its way to becoming the first Ivy team to capture an ECAC team championship. The gymnastics team also pulled in its fifth Ivy title of the '90s -- two more than the football team has grabbed this decade. Individually, Elizabeth Jacobson won the beam event at the ECACs, and Becky Nadler was the champion on the floor exercise. Gunn, meanwhile, made it all the way to the NCAA Regionals in Pittsburgh. The gymnastics team not only won its league, but it went beyond expectations and raised the quality bar for all future Ivy League gymnastics teams. No other Penn team continually pushed itself further to meet previously unheard of goals. · Roger Reina's teams have been reaching new heights each year for the past five years. His wrestling team pulled down its third straight Ivy title in 1998 and claimed its third straight EIWA title as well. For his leadership, he's our choice as Coach of the Year. With Brandon Slay gone from this year's team, Reina and his men have showed that one person does not make a whole team. Even without the school's all-time win leader, the team has not stopped pushing its way towards the national top ten. Reina, now in his 13th year as Penn's coach, also was active in the rule changes that occurred following the deaths of three collegiate wrestlers. At the time of the deaths, Reina was president-elect of the National Wrestling Coaches Association. Before Reina arrived at Penn, the Quakers had never won the EIWAs. Now, Penn has three straight. · The women's basketball team didn't take home the Ivy title. In fact, it wasn't even above .500, finishing the season at 13-13. What that record would have been without the efforts of current sophomore Diana Caramanico is not something one wants to think about. The 1998 Ivy League Rookie of the Year was the brightest of new stars on the athletic scene, making her our pick for Female Athlete of the Year. Caramanico was also the ECAC and Big Five Rookie of the Year, and was the only underclassman on the first-team All Big Five roster. The super frosh netted 20.2 points per game and provided an able third scorer on the court to complement senior captains Michele Maldonado and Colleen Kelly. · The two football teams on campus not only shared the distinction of earning league titles in 1998. Both teams also had two work horses in the back field. Jim Finn and Tim Ortman piled up yards, touchdowns and wins for the varsity and Sprint football teams, respectively. Both ended the season as league MVPs, and both are the school record holders for rushing yards in a season. It was Week 4 before any team held Ortman to fewer than 200 yards, and Cornell only succeeded in doing that due to an injury Ortman suffered. Finn, meanwhile, posted possibly the single greatest day for a Penn running back when he scampered for 269 yards and a record six rushing touchdowns during the Ivy record-setting loss to Brown. The two have parted paths, as Finn is now working towards the NFL draft, while Ortman is on the mat for the wrestling team. But in 1998, their seasons were almost identical in their dominance and influence on a league title.