W. Track hopes to keep improvement streak alive at Cornell

Coming off a strong showing at last Saturday's Delaware Invitational, the Penn women's track team hopes that the upswing continues tomorrow. At the Cornell Invitational in Ithaca, N.Y., the Quakers will try to maintain their season-long trend of improving with each meet. "It's important to compete well against Cornell to give us an idea of where we are and where we need to be going into Heps," senior sprinter Shana McDonald-Black said. The Heptagonal Championships, known to the athletes and their coaches as "Heps," is the most important meet of the indoor season. The meet serves as a conference championship for the eight Ivy League schools plus Navy. "We're a pretty strong team," McDonald-Black said. "We've been progressively getting better, even though we started out a little slow." Luana Botehlo, the senior shot-putter who placed first in her event last week at Delaware, agreed that the Quakers "have a lot of potential, we're just waiting for that one meet where we get everybody together." As for her individual performance this season, Botehlo was also very positive. "Last week [at Delaware], I was really close to a personal record," Botehlo said. "I'm a lot stronger than I've been and I'm a lot more sound technically." The thrower's goals for Cornell are to "maintain the level at which I'm performing, or, of course, go higher." McDonald-Black was not as pleased with her record thus far. "I haven't had the times I would like." said Mcdonald-Black, who runs the 55- and 200-meters. "This week I'm in the 4x400 relay, which should make me stronger for the 200, but, since I'm a short-distance sprinter, it's a scary thing for me." Another senior, Aqiyla Muhammad, who competes in both the long jump and the triple jump, set her sights high early. "My goal for this meet is to qualify for the ECACs," Muhammad said. "Since this is my last year, I set some goals for myself this summer. One goal was to win a long jump title at Heps like I did my sophomore year. My long-term goal, though, was to see how far I can go, and if it means I could go to Nationals, so be it." The ECACs are different from any other meet during the indoor track season. Athletes must qualify to compete at ECACs by meeting time or distance criteria at another track meet sometime during the season. A good showing at the ECACs could in turn qualify the individual for the Nationals. "I feel good about my chances," Muhammad said. "I started off very well this season, and I hope for a strong showing this weekend." Last year, the Cornell Invitational took place a week before the Heptagonal Championships. It was also a turning point in the Quakers' season. After last year's meet, Penn assistant coach Tony Tenisci said, "This is the first time for the team where all the pieces started to come together." If the same thing is true this year, the Quakers are definitely on their way up.