This weekend's fifth- place out of 11 finish at the Delaware Invitational was not a prestigious result as winter track meets go, but that honor will come if the Penn men's track team can rise to the top of next week's Penn State Collegiates or even more so to the head of the Heptagonal Championships in two weeks.
"This was a building week for Penn State," sophomore Zach Suttile said. "It was just one of those run of the mill, ordinary meets."
Coach Charlie Powell did not bring the entire squad to Delaware this weekend, but those he brought performed well.
"For some people this meet was a tuneup," Powell said. "For others, it was an opportunity to train. For others, it was a chance to lower times."
The meet featured mostly freshmen and other inexperienced members of the team, as Powell elected to leave several members home to continue training for more prestigious meets in the future.
However, certain of those who journeyed to Delaware for the meet returned home with very impressive performances.
Sophomore Joe Fabiani grabbed second in the 1000 meter run with a time of 4:22.83. Brendan Callahan took fifth in both the shot-put and weight throw. Suttile also took second in the pole vault with a measurement of 15 feet 3 inches.
But Penn's highlight of the meet went to Matt Wedge, who raced to a third-place finish in the 60 meter hurdles in 8.31 seconds.
"Timewise it was not a major improvement," Powell said. "But the track was not very good. He is ready for much bigger things."
Wedge will get that chance to compete on a good track next week at Penn State's two-year-old facility. He will also face some of the best competition in collegiate track in Happy Valley.
"Besides for the conference meet, there is going to be some of the best competition around," Suttile said. "It's time to show the rest of the Ivy League that we can compete with the big boys."
Monmouth took first place overall for the meet, while host Delaware garnered third.
The Quakers will take part in the Penn State Collegiates this Friday and Saturday.
