Big Apple takes a bite out of M. Track

Call it an off week. Call it a mid-season lapse. Whatever it was, the Penn men's indoor track team would just like to forget about it. The Quakers had a lackluster outing on Saturday at the Jasper Relays in New York, and they knew it. It was so disappointing for Penn that coach Charlie Powell's squad is probably thankful that the meet went unscored. Sophomore distance runner Matt Gioffre was upset with his personal performance on Saturday, but he knows he still has time to rebound, as the Heptagonal Championships are still four weeks away. "For myself, it was a setback, but it's really no big deal," Gioffre said. Gioffre was unable to point to any specific individual standouts among the Quakers' distance squad. Penn's third-place finish in the 4x800-meter relay was very solid, however, especially considering that more than fifteen teams were at the meet. It was frustrating for the Red and Blue to perform so poorly, but various factors outside of their control might have contributed to the poor showing. Most significantly, the Quakers lost what they view as an essential aspect of their competitive edge -- to act as cheerleaders for their teammates. While the runners can generally provide support for the field athletes and vice versa, the two corps of Quakers were not even in the same borough on Saturday. With the Harlem River dividing them, those participating in the field events performed on Manhattan College's campus in the Bronx, and the runners competed at the 168th Street Armory in Manhattan. Splitting the team up was not the only problem for the Quakers, according to pole vaulter Bob Reynolds. It seems that Penn had some issues with the interior design of Draddy Gymnasium. "Everything [is] tan colored, so it threw your concentration off," said Reynolds, who did not compete because of a knee injury. The senior added that the Penn vaulters managed to claim the first three spots, with John Church taking top honors. Still, the victory was a struggle because the facility was extremely cramped, frequently leaving dangerously little room between the venues for different events. The Quakers also blamed a delay in start time for some of their less-than-spectacular performances. The meet began in the late afternoon, but some of the runners' events, such as Gioffre's distance races, did not get underway until nearly midnight. "We were definitely trying our hardest, but there was a lot of bad luck," Gioffre said.