M. X-Country opens season with win at Lafayette Invite

That said, after its victory at Saturday's Lafayette Invitational, the Penn men's cross-country team has every reason to believe that it is a deep, battle-proven squad, poised once again to challenge for the Heptagonal crown. "It felt good to come into a race that we basically treated as a low-key, preseason workout and walk out with the win," Penn senior Mark Granshaw said. Penn won the meet in style, besting second-place Lafayette by 19 points. Granshaw (26:18), sophomore Matt Gioffre (26:41), sophomore Anthony Ragucci (26:57) and freshman Anthony Sager (27:00) went out as a group. The three upperclassmen all finished in the top 10 and Sager narrowly missed, finishing eleventh. "Our mentality was to focus on splits and really work toward running a steady-state race," Ragucci said. "Winning the race was a bonus." The field at Lafayette included some better-than-decent Division I programs, but it didn't boast the kind of programs Penn will need to trounce if they have hopes for success at Heps or at Regionals. Strength of competition aside, the story of the day has to be Mark Granshaw. His win was not only the first cross country victory by any current Penn runner but also his first victory since his sophomore year of high school. "I'm coming off a summer where I worked more on my running than I ever have," Granshaw said. "Being a senior, I really want to be able to lead by example, to show what it means to be a varsity scorer." Granshaw deserved his triumph on Saturday. Throughout his career, despite proving himself a hard-nosed competitor, he has rarely seen any of the spotlight. "We come away from that race with great confidence," Penn senior co-captain Sean MacMillan said. "Knowing that we can win a race with some of our top guys on the sideline makes me more excited to jump in there and start running." MacMillan, the Quakers' frontrunner in each of his starts last year, was one of three top athletes who stuck to just cheering on Saturday in Easton, Pa. Senior co-captain Scott Clayton and junior Bryan Kovalsky were the other who didn't lace up their trail shoes. All three are feeling healthy and they will likely provide the nucleus for future Penn success in 1999. "We're in good shape. This was just an opportunity for some other guys to run their own race," MacMillan said. The competition for the Penn women's team in Easton was somewhat more illustrious on Saturday with the presence of Ivy rival Princeton. The Tigers, who won the meet with a total of 46 points, were far ahead of a Penn squad that finished ninth out of 11 teams. "We're pretty disappointed with our performance," freshman Lauren Avallone said. "Nobody had a great day, so it just didn't add up to a success." This youthful season, however, may still have success in store for the female Penn tracksters. Avallone, in her first race in Penn sweats, finished 39th with a time of 20:30 and slightly brightened a gloomy day for the Quakers. Junior Meredith Rossner (21st place/19:53) and sophomore Susie Cook (29th/20:10) were the class of the Penn crop and clear signs of life. Once the Quakers regain the services of senior Stephanie Bell and sophomore Samantha Desposito, Penn may get a better picture of what it can do.