The Penn men's track team found itself in a precarious position at the end of Saturday's meet against Navy.
The Quakers were down, 71-63, to the Midshipmen, with only two relays -- the distance medley (DMR) and the 4x400 meter -- remaining. However, since both events are scored the same way, giving the winning team five points, Penn still had some life left.
But it was up to a young DMR team -- with two freshmen and one sophomore -- to give the Quakers a shot to win.
The DMR came through, and the 4x400 cruised to a victory to give the Quakers a comeback 73-71 victory.
"It was a little shaky having such a young group running to win the meet," Penn coach Charlie Powell said. "But we had confidence in those guys. I was confident we could win."
The DMR's last leg, the 800 meters, was anchored by sophomore Joe Plevelich.
"The whole team was around the track at different points cheering us on," he said. "Everyone was behind us, and that really helped."
In addition to Plevelich, freshmen Josh Joseph (1200m) and Dusty Leib (1600m) ran the first and third legs, and senior O'Neil Bryan ran the 400. It was the first-ever college track race for Leib, who ran his leg in 4:19.
After that victory, the Quakers' vaunted 4x400 relay team made quick work of Navy, winning in a time of 3:21.88.
"We have a tradition of having a strong 4x400 team," Powell said. "The four guys on the team have been running since last year and just want to keep that tradition going."
The team is comprised of two sophomores, Luqman Kolade and Chris Edmonds, and two juniors, Brian Abram and Sam Burley.
The Quakers were not just solid in those two relays, however. Senior Tuan Wreh had an outstanding day, finishing first in the long, triple, and high jumps. Wreh has qualified for the IC4A Championships in both the long and triple jumps.
"It's always good to qualify for IC4A's this early in the season and just get it out of the way," Wreh said.
Wreh said he was pleased with his first-place finish in the high jump.
"The coaches want me to do the high jump to help out the team, and I'm working at it a lot more now," he said. "My performances should improve even more by the end of the season."
It was a bit of a surprising win for the Red and Blue, who usually do not do this well in their first meet back after winter break.
"Navy usually blows us out in this meet," Powell said. "The shorter break really helped us this year... a lot of guys stepped up today."
Powell said he was pleased with many of Penn's athletes and was extremely excited about the performance of his freshmen.
More specifically, he said he was impressed with Neil Wadowski's performance in the pole vault and Steve Hayes's finish in the mile.
The Quakers were also helped by a one-two finish in the 55m hurdles. Bryan took the event in a time of 7.61 seconds, with junior Jared Shoemaker finishing 0.16 seconds behind.
For the Quakers, this exciting finish marks the second time in recent memory that the meet came down to the 4x400. Last year on April 21, the Quakers needed a win in that event to defeat Cornell, 86-77.
On Saturday, as the Quakers had to come from behind again to win the dual meet, Plevelich said his relay team was not nervous.
"We knew that if we won the DMR, we could win the meet for out team," he said. "We weren't worried about trying to win the meet, we just wanted to win the race.
"It's a huge confidence builder for the rest of the season."
