Led by strong performances from the freshman class,the Penn men's and women's cross country teams both came away with first-place finishes over the weekend at the Delaware Invitational.
The meet, which took place at White Clay Creek State Park in Newark, Del., featured several nonconference opponents that allowed the Quakers to give their upperclassmen the weekend off.
The men's team placed six runners in the top 10, and were able to dominate most of the competition during an extremely hot and humid day on the eight-kilometer course.
We didn't run a lot of our upperclassman at all," Penn men's coach Charlie Powell said. "I haven't run two or three of my better runners yet this year. We let the younger guys take care of this race, that was by design."
Freshman Brian Trembley finished second overall with a time of 26:42. The West Orange, N.J., native came 32 seconds behind P.J. Meany of Delaware.
"It was nice to see one of our top recruits, Brian Trembley, be our number one guy," Powell said.
Seventeen seconds behind Trembley was sophomore Larry Contrella, who finished third overall. Along with classmate Reid McEwen's fifth-place finish and junior Michael LaQuaglia's sixth-place run, the Quakers were in prime position to defeat Delaware and win the meet.
"We ran a good solid race, especially during the middle part of the race," Powell said. "The young guys did a great job today and stepped up and won this event."
Rounding out the top 10 were Penn junior James Roat and sophomore Mike Lovejoy, who finished in ninth and 10th place, respectively. Penn junior Bill Young finished in 13th place.
"They were there for most of the race, we just lost a couple of guys in the last mile," Powell said. "It's a major factor. They controlled the race, didn't let it get crazy."
Delaware came in second place behind the Quakers, with Hofstra, Richard Stockton College and Coppin State rounding out the top five out of eight overall teams.
The Penn women's cross country team actually won their meet even more handily, placing three runners in the top five.
The twin duo of sophomores Stacey and Claire Kim placed second and third, respectively, for the Quakers. The twins from Fullerton, Calif., also finished 1-2 for the Red and Blue last weekend at the Fordham Invitational.
"We had the twins made up some ground that was really significant," Penn women's coach Gwen Harris said.
Freshman Leah Brogan came in fifth place to solidify the Quakers' victory.
All three Penn rookies broke the course record of 18:52, which was set in 2001. Stacey Kim completed the 5K race in 18:30.70, eight seconds behind the individual winner, Mary Sullivan of Hofstra.
The Quakers were able to distance themselves from second place Delaware when junior Christina Morrison nabbed sixth place and sophomore Jamie Liberti finished ninth.
Harris expressed confidence that her freshman class would be able to use meets like this to prepare for tougher competition in the future.
"They're going to be good, I'm not worried," Harris said. "The thing I like about the freshmen is they want to do it ... they follow my instructions."
Hofstra placed third overall among the women's standings while Towson and Delaware State completed the top five out of the nine teams in the event.
