M. Track looks sharp at Penn Invitational

It took Penn junior Brian Abram less than a day to adjust to life in the fast lane.

Already a dominant 400 meter runner, Abram instead ran the 100 and 200 at the Penn Invitational last weekend.

"The 400 is like the 200 only you don't have to hang on for the last 200 meters," Abram said. "So the 200 for me is to go all out -- I just don't worry about the last 200. It's more of a relief than anything.

"In the 100, you don't think, you just go. There's a lot more brute force."

Evidently, Abram had plenty of force. He won the 100 in 10.98 seconds and captured second in the 200 at 22.21 -- one-hundredth of a second behind Wheaton's Erik Benson.

But Abram wasn't the only one to strike gold for the Quakers.

Junior Sam Burley won the 800 meter run in 1:50.51, while sophomore Luqman Kolade took the 400 meter high hurdles in 54.11 seconds.

Fellow sophomore Matt Wedge placed first in the 110 meter high hurdles in 14.48 seconds, beating teammate O'Neil Bryan in the process.

Bryan finished runner-up by one-hundredth of a second in his first meet of the outdoor season. He was hurt in the last meet of the indoor season.

"Matt beat me for the first time," Bryan, a senior, said. "Some of it had to do with the injury, but I have to give him credit for that."

With the addition of the winning 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams, the Red and Blue won six events.

Other notable performances were turned in by Penn junior Justin King in the discus and senior Tuan Wreh in the long jump, both of whom finished in second place.

Sophomore Joe Plevelich finished three spots behind Burley in the 800, while Penn had fourth-place finishes with freshman Nolan Tully in the 5000 and sophomore Tom Van Reichbauer in the discus.

The Quakers' 1500 meter runners fared well, as freshmen Steve Hayes and Scott Sebens finished fourth and sixth, sandwiching senior Matt Gioffre, who was fifth.

Third-place finishers included freshman Neal Wojdowski in the pole vault and senior Gene Sun in the 100 meter dash.

"I thought I did alright," Sun said. "But track doesn't matter till the end.

"I'm disappointed at my time, but we had a hard week [in practice]."

Another week of break neck paced practice is not an option. With next weekend's quad meet against Villanova, Penn State and Princeton, the Quakers need to get their legs back.

"For me, I need more technical work because I missed some time," Bryan said. "But for the rest of the team, practice will be hard, but not as hard.

"We'll back off somewhat."

Abram, however, seems as if he's already set to compete.

"Cornell came down [last weekend] and we did a good job against them," he said. "With a few exceptions, we beat them in every event.

"We'll use the Cornell momentum against Princeton -- doing well against Penn State and Villanova is just a credit to our program."

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