Rain stops W. Track at the Quaker Invite

Although schools such as Delaware State, Rutgers and Fordham took part in the Quaker Invitational yesterday at Franklin Field, Mother Nature was undoubtedly the most fearsome challenger facing the Penn women's track team. What was supposed to be an exciting beginning to the outdoor season for the Quakers ended suddenly when the torrential downpour made the conditions too dangerous for competition. "I would have hoped that it would have been a beautiful day, like on Saturday," Penn coach Betty Costanza said, "and that [the team] could have had a chance to compete under better conditions. "Performances were indicative of the weather," Costanza said. "We never finished the meet. By that time it was dangerously wet and cold, and it just was not safe for the athletes to be out there." The women's 200-meter race, as well as the 4x400-meter and 4x800-meter relays, were not contested after the coaches conferred and decided that it would be in the best interest of the athletes to cancel the remainder of the meet. According to Costanza, the main factor behind the cancellation of the meet was that there were no athletes left to compete. Many of the coaches were scratching their athletes, especially as the rain intensified, because they did not want to risk injury this early in the season. One of the most frustrating things for all the competitors was trying to warm up. According to Penn senior captain Vicki Moore, the cold made it difficult for the athletes to know when they were loose enough and many of them were fearful of pulled muscles. The fact that the meet was running 30 to 45 minutes behind schedule did not help either, because no one knew when their event was going to be up. "It just killed us I think. Technically, when you have that kind of weather it really messes you up," Costanza said. "Any of the technical events -- long jumping, triple jump, high jump -- it affects you. Your run is different, you stand around and get tight. It is not like you run once and are out of there." Despite the terrible conditions some of the Quakers were still able to pull out impressive performances in the field events. Freshmen Brandi Spencer and Natalie Ostroff, who have been struggling lately, tied with two other women for second place in the high jump with a 1.49-meter mark. With a slippery track, the Penn runners also had to deal with conditions that were less than ideal. "It was really hard to see out there today," senior captain Jessica Mitchell said. "The weather ended up being a lot more distracting because you're worrying about getting wet while you're running and having to squint. "If it affected me, it must have been difficult for the field event people -- the throwers and the jumpers -- who had to hit their marks." Mitchell was one of four Quakers to finish first yesterday, claiming a victory in the 800 meters with a time of 2:14.89. In addition to her victory, sophomore JaJuan Gair captured the 100-meter high hurdles with a time of 14.98, sophomore Amy Nichols won the discus with a 39.12-meter throw and senior captain Rita Garber secured the 5000-meter contest with a time of 17:52.99. Moore also turned in an impressive performance for the Quakers in the 400 meters, placing second with a time of 58.04 -- 23 hundredths of a second behind Temple's Benita Chandler. "I think everyone was just trying to preform as well as we could because we cannot control the weather," Moore said. "It is never going to be perfect no matter where we run."