By John Cesarine
Staff Writer
cesarine@sas.upenn.edu
Both the men's and women's track teams are competing at the Penn State Open this weekend against powerhouses like Penn State, Villanova, Army, Navy, and Virginia Tech - but someone forgot to mention that to the Penn head coaches.
Both are excited about the weekend, and believe their teams can hold their own with anyone.
Men's coach Charlie Powell said, Penn "is one of the top track programs in the east. We will be more than fine. We match up well with a lot of great teams."
Powell is still exuding confidence, and his team is catching on quickly.
Women's coach Gwen Harris had a similar opinion. "Even though there are some pretty good teams in this event, we will be more than alright," she said.
This two-day event this weekend is different from many other events. Mainly, individual performance is stressed here, not team performance. Also, this meet showcases a few events not normally on the Ivy League slate.
For the men, the multi-eventers get a chance to put on a show this weekend. They only get a few chances before championships to compete in a full heptathlon. Penn's three stud multi-eventers, Kyle Calvo, Mike Hall, and Max Westman, will get their chance to go for a big score this weekend and try to qualify for NCAA championships. They have been preparing for this meet for the last two months.
"We are looking for some big things from them this week. We will have a little fun with it. We are going to go after a couple things with Anthony Abitante and also see what John Carelli can do. We are going to let him high jump this week, so that will be interesting," Powell said.
This event is also used to showcase the 5,000-meter run and the 200-meter dash. Neither is a conference event, but Penn will use them to see where its runners are. They will put together both the 200-meter runners and the 400-meter runners and let them all run the 200.
"It's a good indicator of how strong our sprinters are and how fast our 400 runners are," Powell explained.
Reid McEwen, who won at 3,000 meters last week, and Ian Foley will headline in the 5,000.
The women have the same goal as in previous weeks - they are trying to gain experience and keep improving: "Our goals are always going to be the same; we are preparing ourselves for Heps," Harris said. "We want to make sure we are aggressively better each week so that when we get to Heps we will peak at the right time."
Both teams had good weeks of practice and neither team has any injuries as of yet.
"I'm very excited to see how we will do against everyone else," Harris said. They will find that out on Friday and Saturday."
