The Penn men's cross-country team had strong performances in two different meets over 800 miles apart on Saturday.
The team's top runners competed in the Pre-Nationals at the University of Northern Iowa, finishing 26th out of 35 teams.
Penn was led by the duo of juniors Nolan Tully and Stephen Hayes, who finished seven-tenths of a second apart. Tully crossed the finish line of the eight-kilometer race in 25:16 and Hayes followed at 25:17.
Penn coach Charlie Powell said that the team went into the race knowing that Tully and Hayes would race ahead with the remainder of the Quakers staying in a pack.
Junior Matt Van Antwerp was the next Penn finisher at 25:20. Junior George Weiner (25:29) and freshman Troy Werner (25:31) rounded out the top five for Penn.
The 35-team meet was by far the largest that Penn has competed in this year. Powell admitted that the magnitude of the event had an impact on some of his runners.
"I'll be brutally honest," he said. "We had a couple of guys who really panicked out there."
Tully said that he and his running partner were affected by the competition, saying, "Steve [Hayes] and I were both kind of flustered running in a race like that."
This anxiety did not apply to the entire squad, however, as Powell complimented some of his younger runners' poise. Powell said that Werner "kept his head on really well," and went on to note the improving leadership ability of Weiner and Van Antwerp.
Top-ranked Stanford dominated the meet, placing six runners in the top 10 on its way to an easy first-place finish. "They're by far the best in the country," Powell said. "They proved it again today."
While Penn's top 10 runners competed in Iowa, the rest of the team ran to a 15th-place finish out of 20 schools at the Penn State Open, which was won by Colorado State.
Freshman Michael Cassidy was the top Penn finisher with a time of 28:10 on the 5.2-mile course. Completing the top five were freshmen Ian Foley (28:26), Laurent Van Hassel (29:05) and Fred David (29:08) and junior Zach Blodgett (28:31).
The Quakers' next competition will be the 2003 Heptagonal Championships on Oct. 31.
For Heps, the Quakers will return to Van Cortlandt Park, the site of their second-place finish in the Fordham Invitational on Sept. 13. Tully, who also ran at the New York park during his high school years for the state championships, looks forward to the race.
"I like the five-mile course," he said. "I know it pretty well."
At the Pre-Nationals, attended by six of the eight Ivy League teams, Princeton showed why they are thought to be the class of the league, finishing 14th. However, Powell and Tully agree that the Heptagonals will be a wide-open affair with several evenly matched teams competing for spots near the top.
