At the Heptagonal Championships in New York City, Penn women's cross country finished fourth while the men's squad took third place.
But there was no doubt who was on top.
In dominating fashion, both the men's and women's individual winners came from Princeton, as the Tigers swept Heps for the second straight season. Princeton's cross country team is currently ranked fourth in the nation.
Running on a windy, overcast day, both teams took to the course before the rains came and finished with good results.
On the men's side, seniors Reid McEwen and Brian Goldberg led the way for the Quakers, finishing fourth and seventh respectively, and both earned first-team All-Ivy honors.
McEwen's fourth-place finish was the highest by a Penn runner since Sean McMilian came in fourth at Heps in 1999.
"We're fairly pleased - we went into this year saying our goal was to be on the podium," men's coach Charlie Powell said. "The result of this race allowed us to reach one of our team goals. A lot of guys also ran their best ever. I don't know if we had a man that didn't run his top time on that course."
Senior Stacy Kim earned second-team All-Ivy honors, finishing in a time of 17:52 on the 5K course. Junior Leah Brogan didn't finish too far behind Kim, in 14th place, clocking in at 18:03.6, also earning second team All-Ivy.
"With Jamie [Liberti] running the way she did and all the other girls stepping up, I think we did an excellent job," women's coach Gwen Harris said.
Liberti, who had not finished in the top five among Penn runners all season long, was a nice surprise on the women's side. She scored 40 points for the team and, at last, was the fifth Penn runner to cross the finish line.
"I was very happy for Jamie today," said Kim. "I knew she could do it. We were all waiting for her to jump right back in. It was her last race at Van Cortlandt Park and I'm glad she finished it strong."
Kinjal Parikh and Claire Kim were the women's third and fourth finishers.
The road to a third-place finish was bumpy for the men.
"Brian had a slow start to the season and Reid fell at pre-nat[ionals] and banged his knee up," Powell said. "But they've recovered and they're still our top two and our leaders."
Larry Contrella and Brian Trembley were the men's number three and four finishers. Two freshmen, Anguel Tolev and Luke Grau, followed them as Penn's fifth and sixth runners, respectively.
"Anguel and Luke have definitely been coming together for us in the races," McEwen said. "The time they ran on Friday was great for freshmen. They're going to do a lot for the program individually and as a team."
Now both the men and women have regionals to look forward to in two weeks.
Last year, Kim qualified at regionals and competed at nationals.
"[Goldberg] has wanted to go to nationals all through college and I'm excited about it too because it's new territory for me," McEwen said. "But the more people that go, the better."
