W. Track unites in victory at Princeton

The pieces to the puzzle finally came together for the Penn women's track team last weekend. The Quakers defeated rival Princeton, 89-61, on Saturday at Old Nassau. So far this outdoor season, Penn hasn't been able to perform well as a cohesive team. Whether hampered by bad weather or injuries, the squad just couldn't seem to all perform well at the same time. But that all changed on Saturday. When the Red and Blue stepped off the bus in Princeton, N.J., into sunny weather and warm conditions, the past few weeks of hardship melted away. The Quakers soaked up the sunshine and turned in a stellar performance by clobbering their hosts. "One of the most important factors to our win this weekend was that we finally had nice weather," Penn sophomore Julie Siebert-Johnson said. "It really meant a lot to this team that's been training through the rain and the cold this whole week. The sun broke through and gave everyone a lot of extra energy." Yinka Orafidiya excelled once again this weekend. She won the hammer throw with a school-record-breaking toss of 165'10" -- a performance added to an extremely strong showing from the entire Penn throwing squad. Senior captain Monica Maccani won the discus in 140'5" and Siebert-Johnson ousted her opponents in the javelin by throwing 140'4". Penn was boosted by strong performances from their veterans as well as their freshmen, especially in the distance events. Because distance has been a weak point for the Quakers all season long, they rely on their sprinters and jumpers to rake in the most points for the team. This weekend freshman Abigail Gleeson broke the streak of mediocre distance running by winning the 3000-meter event in 10:15.78. Fellow freshman Caroline Rebello, as usual, won the pole vault. "We were very happy with the meet this weekend, we had a lot of really good performances," Penn senior Mercy Okoye said. "The freshmen and the distance team had a particularly good weekend. They really broke out." Seniors Bassey Adjah and JaJuan Gair worked together to dominate the sprinting events for Penn. Adjah won three out of her four events -- the 100 meters (12.74 seconds), the 200 (26.31 seconds) and the long jump (18'10"). She also finished second in the 100-meter high hurdles behind teammate Gair. "We had big performances in every event," Siebert-Johnson said. "We all felt so good that we didn't have to worry coming down the stretch, we pretty much new that we would win." Penn is now hoping to build upon the success of its win against the Tigers as the Quakers take on Cornell next weekend. Now that all the puzzle pieces have fallen together, its just a matter of making sure they stay there. "Our attitude was great from the beginning," Okoye said. "It's been a while since we've beaten Princeton and it felt really, really good. Hopefully it will carry over next weekend against Cornell."

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