M. Track bus stalls before Navy meet

Better late than never. The Penn men's track team was almost forced to run to Annapolis, Md., to compete at Navy when the team bus failed to show up at 8:30 a.m. due to mechanical difficulties. At least running to Navy would've given the athletes a warm-up -- after arriving over two hours late, the Quakers had little or no time to prepare for their events. "The guys that were down there early performed OK," Penn coach Charlie Powell said. "We rushed to get down there. Most of them didn't have time to warm up." In addition, because of the late arrival, many of the athletes completely missed their events. "We only had a quarter of the team compete in the events they were supposed to," senior Rich Carlson said. Unlike most Penn athletes, Carlson did arrive in time to compete in his event, the high jump -- one of the few bright spots in Saturday's meet with three Quakers placing in the top seven. "I really didn't have time to warm up properly," Carlson said. "I jumped very poorly. There's no excuse for me not to jump 6'7'' [or] 6'8''." Quakers senior Stan Anderson took first place with a jump of 6'9". Carlson placed fourth after clearing 6'5''. Anderson also claimed first in the triple jump with a distance of 49'3.75". Penn freshman Tuan Wreh placed second in both the high jump and the long jump with distances of 48'2.5" and 22'4.25", respectively. "For the first meet, it was satisfactory," Wreh said. "I know those guys really wanted to compete. I felt really upset for them. It's a team thing; it's not just individual." Penn was also well represented in the 35-lb. weight throw. Penn sophomore Kyle "Biff" Turley placed second with a throw of 53'3.5", one spot ahead of sophomore teammate Matt Pagliasotti, who achieved a mark of 49'10.5". The team was hoping to see improvements by the freshmen at this meet. Underachieving upperclassmen were also expected to work the kinks out of their performance with assigned workouts over winter break. "It's impossible to say [whether the team's performance has improved]," Carlson said. "Overall, the people that competed in their events did better. Next week will be our time to really shine." The freshmen's performance was not totally dismal, as Penn's Chung-Yi Sun placed third in the 55-meter dash -- the only Quaker in the top eight. Even the seasoned veterans felt that they didn't perform to potential because of the bus situation. "When you show up at the bus? you're excited," Penn co-captain Dan Nord said. "It's a buzz kill to sit there. People didn't regain their focus very well, [with] the bus being late." "It's difficult when you get into the mental frame of mind to compete and then you can't because of extenuating circumstances," junior shot putter Brent Stiles said. The Quakers are looking forward to next week at Cornell to put the events of the last meet behind them, and to piece together a successful season. "We're just letting that one go by," Penn co-captain Dan Nord said. "Bad things happen. Perhaps Powell summed it up best: "It was one to not remember," he said.