Quakers send Tigers packing in W. Track

The host Quakers outdistanced Princeton and Yale, while pole vaulter Liz Wittels surpassed the NCAA provisional mark. On a day when many Quakers set personal records, it was the one that did not count that made the biggest splash. The Penn women's track team ran away from the competition on Saturday at Franklin Field when it faced off with Princeton and Yale, two of its biggest Ivy League rivals. The Quakers outdistanced the Tigers, the runners-up at Indoor Heps, 80-61 to finish first, while the Elis lagged behind in third with only 51 points. It was the event that did not win Penn any points, however, that may have caught the most attention. Freshman Elizabeth Wittels blew away the competition in the pole vault with a mark of 12'. Unfortunately for Penn, the pole vault is not scored in Ivy League competition. It is, however, a national event, and Wittels' vault surpassed the provisional mark of 11'6". She fell short of the 13'5" vault necessary for an automatic bid into the NCAA Championships to be held in Idaho later this year. Wittels' vault will be compared to the vaults of other athletes nationwide after the outdoor season and it will be decided then whether or not she will definitely qualify to be among the 16-20 women that are sent to Nationals. "I was just able to put everything together for that jump on Saturday. It was a big barrier for me to cross," Wittels said. "I wanted to make Indoors but I couldn't make the height. Now I have a few more meets to get a couple of inches higher." This is an incredible accomplishment for someone from the Ivy League, as the conference rarely sends an athlete who competes in a technical event to the NCAA Championships, according to assistant coach Tony Tenisci. The Ivy League has traditionally been most successful in qualifying cross-country or distance runners for Nationals. The last Quaker to qualify for NCAAs was two-time All-American triple jumper Karen Smith in 1994. "She went from a 10' to a 12' vault in one meet which is just a huge performance. She went right through 11' with an incredible jump and didn't even use that as her mark," Tenisci said. "It's a provisional mark, so she'll be right in the middle of the pack qualifying to go [to Nationals]. I'm glad that she was able to do it here at Franklin Field. It's just huge, particularly for a freshman. "Liz is an exceptional athlete and an outstanding technician. She came from high school with high standards, and she is going to go very, very far." Wittels outdistanced her closest competitor -- teammate Ami Desai, a sophomore -- by a foot and a half. While Wittels' vault left a lasting impression on many people at the meet, several other Quakers also made significant contributions to Penn's defeat of Yale and Princeton. The team swept the discuss competition as senior captain Luana Botelho and sophomores Monica Maccani and Amy Nichols finished 1-2-3 with throws of 139', 135'6" and 135', respectively. These performances contributed 10 points to the Quakers' final total. Senior Vicki Moore also set a personal record in the 400 meters, coming in second with a time of 56.2 seconds. She was joined by Maccani, who set personal records in both the discus and javelin, and Nichols -- whose 134'7" throw in the hammer was good enough to surpass her own personal best. One of the biggest improvements of the day was made by the Quakers 4x400-meter relay team of Moore, senior captain Jessica Mitchell, senior Sonya Croswell and sophomore Melissa McIntyre. While the team trailed Princeton by .8 seconds, the Quakers drastically improved upon their former personal record of 3:53 by running in 3:48.1. "A big reason we won was because we are proud and from Penn. We weren't going to have people come into Franklin Field and beat us," Tenisci said. "We knew that we could beat them and a lot of these seniors did not want to have the memory of being beaten at home by Princeton and Yale in their senior year."