M. X-C heads to Mich. Invite with large group of freshmen

If Albert Pujols and Ichiro Suzuki can lead their major league baseball teams to the postseason in their rookie years, maybe the same could be hoped for from the very strong freshman component of Penn's men's cross-country team.

This weekend, the Quakers will travel to Ann Arbor, Mich., to participate in the Michigan Inter-regional Invitational.

The trip to the Midwest will be Penn's first meet away from the East Coast since the team's 1998 visit to the University of Oregon.

And joining Penn's veteran core of seniors Matt Caporaletti, Matt Gioffre and Kevin Patric -- three guys who were there when the Quakers went to Oregon -- will be eight freshmen.

"These freshman are some of our top guys," Penn coach Charlie Powell said.

Since the first-year Quakers comprise two-thirds of Penn's 12-man racing contingent at Michigan, the freshmen will have a big hand in the fortunes of the Red and Blue this weekend.

That's not a bad thing, however.

"We get along well with each other, and I think we've created great chemistry this year," Caporaletti said.

The Quakers are coming off a fifth-place finish, out of 39 teams, in the Paul Short Invitational last Saturday at Lehigh.

Penn had problems at the start of that race, as all seven runners were pushed to the back of the pack within the race's first few seconds.

While preparing for the Michigan Invitational, Powell has stressed the importance of his runners "being aware of their surroundings in the race."

The stiffest competition on Saturday is sure to come from the host itself, as the University of Michigan ranks among the top 10 squads in the nation.

"We expect it to be a really good experience to get out to another part of the country and race against different squads," Caporaletti said. "We expect [the competition] to be very strong."

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