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Senior Bassey Adjah will compete in the long and triple jumps, as the Quakers look to improve on their last-place finish at last year's Heptagonals. (Will Burhop/DP File Photo)

The Penn women's track team will head to Boston this weekend to compete in the most important meet of their season -- the Heptagonal Championships. Including the Quakers, nine teams -- Navy and all the Ivies -- will be making the trip to Harvard this weekend to compete. Although the Quakers finished last in Indoor Heps last year, Penn assistant coach Tony Tenisci is very confident about the Red and Blue's chances this time around. "Every one of these teams has had a position on the bottom," Tenisci said. "It does happen to all teams, where you have a cycle. We lost 13 of our athletes the year before that and it's very hard to replace 13 people who scored in the championships. "We have a very different team than we had last year and we hope that, even though it's young, it will be able to have an impact." Penn senior shot putter and weight thrower Yinka Orafidiya believes the Quakers have grown since last year's dead-last finish. "Even though we finished in last last year in Indoor Heps, in Outdoor Heps, we did a little better," Orafidiya said. "I think that gave us more confidence. Going in there, we just feel a lot stronger and more confident in ourselves." Senior triple and long-jumper Bassey Adjah is also confident that the Quakers can improve on last year's performance. "I think we're going to do very well if everyone shows up at the same time," Adjah said. "We're going to be hyped up. We're going to do the best we can and hopefully everyone shows up." "It depends on who wants it the most," Orafidiya added. "And I know we want it bad." Sophomore triple jumper Meredith Bunche is very optimistic about Penn's season thus far, and believes the Quakers are hitting their peak at just the right time. "The whole season, the team has been crescendoing," Bunche said. "I think we didn't surprise ourselves [with] the kind of times and the distances that we've jumped and ran. I think the team has pretty much been resting these past couple weeks because we feel very prepared for this upcoming weekend." Bunche, however, has mixed feelings about her own performances. "This season, I've had some really good meets and I've also had some really bad meets," Bunche said. "But this weekend is definitely not a time when I can let myself have a bad meet." Although the season has been one of many positives and few negatives, the Quakers are nonetheless determined to put everything that has happened behind them and stay focused solely on Heps. "The whole season comes down to this weekend," Tenisci said. "It doesn't get better than this. No matter what we did before, good or bad, it all comes down to doing well this weekend. "I think the team is ready to go."

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