M. X-C takes third at Heps

Sean MacMillan and Scott Clayton placed fourth and fifth in Van Cortlandt Park. With the District 2 Championships looming less than two weeks away, the Penn men's cross-country team could not have picked a better time for what Quakers co-captain Scott Clayton called Penn's "best race in 26 years." Led by its two standout captains -- Clayton and Sean MacMillan -- Penn finished third in the Heptagonal Championships. With 91 points, the Quakers placed behind Dartmouth (79 points) and first-place Princeton (62 points), due in large part to the performances of MacMillan and Clayton, who placed fourth and fifth respectively in the 80-man field. Friday's nine-team meet at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, N.Y., featured all eight Ivy League teams, but Clayton felt best about defeating the one non-Ivy school in the field. The Naval Academy had placed ahead of Penn earlier in the season, and ahead of the Quakers in Heps every year since 1988, but Penn edged the Midshipmen by two points in this past weekend's competition. The 29-point difference between Penn and Princeton was the closest Penn had come to winning Heps since 1978, when Penn also finished with 91 points, trailing first-place Princeton by 13. The Quakers runners believe a couple factors gave them an advantage in the race. For one thing, the Quakers run on the Van Cortlandt course so often that they were able to formulate a solid plan of attack. "We wanted to maintain a steady effort," Clayton said, since the course's first mile is flat while the next two are rather hilly. In addition, Clayton said he felt that the unseasonably mild temperatures combined with strong winds caused slower times across the board, but particularly so for the New England racers who were perhaps ill-prepared for the warmth. Aside from the two captains, sophomore Matt Gioffre also opened some eyes by finishing in 12th place, still within a minute of the winning time. Clearly, there were many reasons for Penn's success on Friday. "We ran really well up front," MacMillan said. The co-captain was concerned, however, that the Quakers may have been too "front-heavy," indicating that the No. 4 and 5 runners must perform better. As Penn turns its attention now to the District 2 Championships on November 13 at Lehigh University, though, a healthy Mark Granshaw should remedy that problem. Granshaw, a senior, battled through an illness at Friday's meet but is expected to be 100 percent healthy for the crucial competition in Bethlehem, Pa., that could send Penn to the national championships at Indiana on November 22. Teams from the entire Mid-Atlantic region will be represented at Lehigh, with the two top schools earning automatic berths in Nationals. The conference is so strong, however, that the third and fourth place teams could easily garner some of the 13 at-large selections available nationally. Such a critical upcoming chapter in the Penn men's cross country team's season is not distracting the Quakers from what they hope to accomplish. The runners will cut down their mileage in practice these next two weeks since they value rest at this stage of the season above all else. Also, the Quakers will maintain their always upbeat attitude as they head into Bethlehem. "Everyone on the team is having a lot of fun and it's helping us out tremendously," Clayton said. Penn is also optimistic about securing a spot at Nationals since the district competition course is 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) long , while all previous meets have spanned five miles. This might benefit Penn, which fields a number of natural long-distance runners.

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