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Penn junior Tuan Wreh took third place in the triple jump last weekend. [Andrew Margolies/SP File Photo]

The Penn men's track team should really consider relocating to Princeton, N.J.

For the third straight weekend, the Quakers competed at William Weaver Stadium in Old Nassau, this time to participate in the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America Championships.

As a team, Penn finished with 23 points, good enough for 14th place at the high-profile meet. The Quakers slipped four spots from their 10th place finish at last year's IC4As.

And despite defeating the home team by a score of 136.5-117 at the Outdoor Heptagonal Championships during the first weekend of May, the Quakers could not keep pace with Princeton at IC4As. The Tigers garnered 43 points during the weekend, resulting in a fourth place finish.

Although the Quakers failed to oust Princeton, they did have a number of strong individual performances.

Leading Penn was junior triple jumper Tuan Wreh who took third place in his event with a personal-best jump of 16.04 meters.

"I was happy with my performance," Wreh said. "I recorded another small personal best, so things are moving in the right direction right now."

Wreh feels, however, that he has enough in him to go even further.

"All the raw materials are already there, I just have to polish everything that I have," Wreh said. "I know I can still record an even better personal best if I just keep on putting in time and effort, doing the same things and concentrating on each and every aspect of it."

Wreh -- winner of the 2000 IC4A triple jump title with a leap of 15.54 meters -- faced much stronger competition this year, which included the likes of Nathan Rollins of Georgetown. The senior sensation won the event and set a new meet record with a jump of 16.5' meters.

But while Wreh was unable to defend his title, he earned something far more valuable -- a good shot at a trip to Eugene, Ore., for the NCAA Championships to be held next weekend.

Wreh's jump of 15.96 meters at the Princeton Invitational on May 13 was, at that time, the nation's 20th-furthest distance.

But with an improvement of eight one-hundredths of a meter, Wreh moved himself into a tie for 14th place.

This drastically improves his chances of qualifying for Nationals, at which approximately 17 to 20 athletes compete in each event. The official list of qualifiers will be announced later today.

Another athlete who may qualify for Nationals is freshman high jumper Adam Chubb, who jumped a personal best 2.20 meters at Heps.

Chubb, who is also a member of the Penn men's basketball team, has been unable to reach that height since Heps, but his jump of 2.09 meters at IC4As was still good enough for third place.

Also scoring points for the Quakers was junior Stephen Faulk, who took fourth in the 100 meter dash with a time of 10.56 seconds.

Faulk was just a hair away from third-place finisher Xavier Chisholm of University of North Carolina-Wilmington, who was also clocked at 10.56.

Faulk also anchored the Penn 4x100 meter relay team that took fifth place in 41.60. The first three legs were run by junior Gene Sun, senior Laethe Coleman and sophomore Brian Abram.

Penn's 4x100 was actually faster in its preliminary heat, where the Quakers ran a scorching 41.2' en route to a taking second place.

The final scorer for Penn at IC4As was sophomore Sam Burley, who took seventh in the '00 with a time of 1:52.51.

Burley's time was more than four seconds slower than his finish just a week earlier.

Had the native of Cheyenne, Wyo., been able to repeat his Princeton Invitational performance, he would have easily outlasted Princeton's Ryan Smith, who took first at IC4As with a time of 1:49.19.

Fortunately for Burley, this will not affect his chances of qualifying for Nationals, because the NCAA selections are based on an athlete's best performance at any point during the season.

Burley's 1:4'.51 just might be enough to get him into Nationals.

With a plethora of individual successes, Wreh feels that the coaches are satisfied with the results of the meet.

"I think they were happy with how we did," Wreh said. "It's a big meet, it's pressure-packed, and you're going against the best guys. I think we had some really good performances.

"A meet of that caliber, that's all you can ask for."

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