Sophomore success and new personal records culminated in a encouraging showing for a young team.
The Penn women's track and field team finished fourth out of 27 teams at the Terrapin Invitational last Saturday.
The home team, the University of Maryland, swept both team titles, though Penn only sent its women.
The Maryland women's team boasted a total of 108.5 points, as compared to the Quakers' 68.5. The Terrapins blew away the rest of the competition, finishing 22.5 points ahead of second-place Hampton University.
But Penn also had its share of success in its second meet of the season. The Quakers got two first-place finishes, and eight different athletes earned points for the team with finishes of eighth place or better.
Because a large majority of the team are freshmen and sophomores, it was important for the Quakers to establish some success early in the spring season.
"We're still young," head coach Gwen Davis said of the team. "The kids are still trying to get used to the competition."
While the underclassmen provided the bulk of the success, the veteran athletes helped to push the Red and Blue to its fourth-place finish.
One example of this came in the 1500-meter run. Junior Christina Morrison set a personal record with a time of 4:32.60 with her first-place finish.
Similarly, senior Dana McCurdy gave the team its other top finish in the 800m with a time of 2:12.12.
The underclassmen did their part for the team as well. Following McCurdy by .12 seconds was sophomore teammate Jesse Carlin, who secured an impressive 1-2 finish for the Quakers in the event.
Sophomore Stacy Kim also finished second in her event, as she managed a time of 17:20.92 in the 5,000m. Classmate Jamie Liberti came in nearly 30 seconds later with a fifth-place finish to earn her share of points for the team.
The sophomore class continued to garner points in the field events of the meet.
In the field, Charity Payne took fifth place in the shotput with a mark of 13.26 meters. She then went on to place eighth in the discus throw, making her the only Penn athlete to win points in two events.
Yet another sophomore, Crista McDonald, earned sixth place in pole vault with a vault of 3.2 meters.
Senior teammate Lauren Davis placed eighth in that event to help push the team past West Virginia for fourth place.
The two classes came together for a second-place finish in the 4x400m relay as McCurdy, Carlin, and sophomores Shaunee Morgan and Brittany Middlebrooks posted a time of 3:46.83.
"We did pretty well overall," Davis said. "It's only our second meet in the season and we were happy with the finish."
The Quakers' next meet will be at Franklin Field Saturday, where they will attempt to defend its home track at the Penn Invitational, just as the Terrapins did last weekend.
