Despite facing nearly 20 teams each in the men's and women's Fordham Invitationals on Saturday, the women's cross country team won the event, while the men came in second behind Navy.
No Penn runner finished with a top three time in either race, but depth carried the Quakers to two high finishes.
Jen Ortman of Albany took the top position in the women's race at 18:52, but Penn had the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-place runners. Clair Kim, Stacy Kim and Leah Brogan finished within three seconds of each other at times of 19:16, 19:17 and 19:18, respectively. Running in a pack was a topic the team has worked on, and coach Gwen Harris was happy to see her top three runners finish at essentially the same time.
"We have to stay together, we have to be within a second of each other," Harris said. "In the first mile they were pretty much all together. In the second mile they split up just a tad, but the packs were still strong and they were pretty much close together. It was pretty much why we won because the packs were close and when we finished, we were pretty much close to the top."
As a team, the Quakers kept their point total down to 37, while second-place St. Francis (Pa.) was some distance back with 61 and third-place Quinnipiac with 65.
The men took second place out of 19 teams in their event with 46 points, trailing only the runners from Navy who posted 36. The Quakers and Middies were the only teams with a shot at winning in the end, as Quinnipiac came in a distant third with 110. While a Fairleigh Dickinson runner blew by the competition with a time of 25:13 - over 40 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher - but Navy took the win thanks in part to placing two runners in the top four.
The Quakers were right behind, though, as senior Ian Foley took fifth place at 26:12, followed by junior teammates Brian Goldberg and Reid McEwen in eighth and ninth, respectively.
The men's team next travels to the Lock Haven Invitational in Lock Haven, Pa., Saturday, while the women follow up their win with a trip to the Delaware Invitational.
Staff reporter KeAndra Dodds contributed to this report
