W.X-Country faces 33-team field at Paul Short Invitational

The Penn women's cross-country team, which has been plagued by injuries throughout the young season, is rested, recuperated and ready to run. All signs point to a strong showing this weekend for the Quakers when they head to the Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh. Stephanie Bell, who was suffering from a respiratory problem, and Katie Henderson, who sprained her ankle two weekends ago, will be in the lineup Saturday. The fact that Bell and Henderson will run means that the Quakers will have their top five runners all healthy for the first time this season. The team is excited to finally go into a meet at full strength. With 33 teams, the Paul Short Invitational is much larger than most meets in which the Quakers run. Several large Division I programs will be competing at Lehigh this weekend. Penn, as the only Ivy League school represented, has a chance to prove itself against some big , scholarship-awarding programs. Freshman Lauren Avallone is looking forward to seeing how Penn will fare against some tough competition. "It's a big race," she said. "It should give us an idea of where we are right now." Penn will be looking to improve on a fourth-place finish out of six teams two weekends ago in the George Bertelsman Invitational at Belmont Plateau. In that race, junior Meredith Rossner led Penn with a fifth-place finish. Avallone, who finished 15th, and Neha Amin, who finished 22nd, also had strong races. "We are depending on our freshmen," Penn assistant coach Cricket Batz-Shaklee said."We had three in our top five last meet and I assume that they will be there again this week." Of the 33 teams competing in the meet, Penn has already run against several of them. It should be interesting to see how a fully healthy Penn squad does against teams they have already seen. While the Quakers did have several strong individual performances in the last meet, the key at Lehigh will be the Quakers' ability to run as a team. This means keeping their top five times -- and thus their top five runners -- relatively close to one another in a pack. "In our last meet, our team spread was pretty big," Batz-Shaklee said. "I would like to bring that down." One concern for the Quakers has to be how well Bell and Henderson will fare after their recent health problems. Rossner does not think this will be an issue. "We have been looking great in practice," Rossner said. "Everyone seems to be healthy and together." With the team at full strength and well-rested after two weeks off, Penn should be in the thick of things this weekend. "Hopefully, the combination of the competition and the good course will help us all perform really well," Rossner said.

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