W. Track gets ninth place at champs

The Penn women's track team met a disappointing end to its indoor season at the Heptagonal Championships last weekend.

After starting the meet out in the middle of the pack, the Red and Blue fell from fifth to ninth and into last place on the final day of competition.

"I am certainly in a rebuilding year which is obvious," Penn coach Tony Tenisci said. "But this team is young, and they will get better."

Particularly handicapping the Quakers as the meet wore on was the slim size of their roster. The Red and Blue found themselves matched against schools who brought nearly two times as many athletes to Ithaca, N.Y.

"We have a very small team," Penn sophomore Grace Maloney said. "Other teams could back things up with numbers. We didn't have room to not be perfect."

Tenisici also recognized Penn's shortcomings in depth and size.

"Harvard alone, most of their athletes are imported athletes from Europe," he said. "And Cornell carries twice as many athletes as us."

While the Red and Blue's overall placement left something to be desired, there were still a number of positives that came out of the meet.

"A lot of the girls on the team had PRs, so I don't know that it was disappointing," Penn sophomore Kai Ivory said.

A handful of fourth-place finishes lifted the Quakers' spirits. Ivory achieved a personal record and nabbed fourth in the penthalon with 3321 points. Sophomore Tonia Sabino placed fourth in the shotput with a distance of 15.54 meters and fellow sophomore Caroline Rebello grabbed the fourth spot in the pole vault with a height of 3.45 meters.

By focusing on these finishes, the personal records and intense team spirit, the Red and Blue now have a basis from which to build for the future.

"You take it and move on," Maloney said. "That's all you can really do. We're not going to dwell on it."

Tenisci was also eager to move on. Given a young roster, he saw a number of positive developments for the future.

"This is the evolution, this is my core," he said. "They will be there and develop."

Development should also continue with an expanded roster, a new set of events and the shift to the outdoors.

"We get intermediate hurdles, and we have the runner up [Crystal Marsh] from that," Tenisci said. "We are more familiar with outdoor.

"Running indoor, being that we don't have an indoor facility is much tougher."

Next up for the Quakers is an is the winter season's final meet -- the ECAC Championships.

The individual competition will be held next weekend in Boston. Penn will send two vaulters -- Rebello and freshman Samantha Crook -- and a 4x800 relay squad -- freshman Anna-Marie Allander, sophomore Emily Logan, freshman Claire Duncan and senior Jessica Lloyd.

"It is great that we have so many young athletes going to the ECACs," Tenisci said.

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