Coming of a first place finish at the Philly Classic, the Penn men's cross country team looked to continue to prove its place among the country's top teams with a solid showing at Pre-Nationals.
"If you want to be among the best, you have to bang heads with the best," said Penn coach Charlie Powell following the Pre-National Meet.
The majority of the team traveled to Terra Haute, Ind. to compete in the Pre-National Meet against many of the nationally top-ranked schools. The rest of the squad participated in the Delaware Invitational at the University of Delaware.
The Quakers ran the 8K race against most of the top 60 schools in the country on Indiana State University's LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course. Each team was assigned to compete in either the White or Blue "Championship" Divisions.
The Quakers sent their top runners into the Blue Division and all remaining team members in Indiana ran in the Open Division.
In the Blue Division, the Quakers finished 26th of 35 teams, including top-ranked Stanford. Sophomores Dusty Lieb, Nolan Tully and Steven Hayes all finished in the top 150 of 235 participants, with Lieb leading the Red and Blue at 77th with a time of 25:14.
Coach Powell was happy with the performance but still was "expecting a little bit more."
While it was a time to expose the young team to the highest level of competition, the team had quite a respectable showing. They finished ahead of top teams Arizona and Kansas, in addition to local rival Bucknell.
With over 250 competitors from 23 schools, Penn placed 14th overall in the Open Division.
Chris Johnson was the highest finisher from the Red and Blue. Johnson finished 78th with a time of 26:11.0. Freshman Matt Evans (83rd) and Junior Joe Fabiani (99th) rounded out the top three Quakers' finishers with times of 26:12.4 and 26:22.5 respectively.
In Delaware, Penn also made its presence felt with a second place showing. Four of the Quakers' runners were among the top 20 at the event. Sophomore Scott Sebens lead the pack with a seventh-place finish (26:44.38). Freshman Mark Materna also finished in the top ten (eighth, 26:48.60). Still recovering from an injury, Matt Van Antwerp placed 13th running the five mile race in 27:21.66.
Powell hopes that the Quakers will solidify their standing as a national caliber team.
With the Heptagonal Championships on Nov. 1, the District Championships after, and Nationals back in Terra Haure around Thanksgiving, the Quakers will hope to do just that.
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