Fifth place was not what the Penn men's and women's track teams had in mind for this weekend's Heptagonal Indoor Championships at Cornell. Despite several impressive individual accomplishments, both teams fell short of the podium.
The women finished in fifth with a total of 45 points, 69 behind first-place Princeton.
"I'm not very happy," women's coach Gwen Harris said. "We always want to finish first."
The Penn women were led by senior Shaunee Morgan's first place finish in the 200m dash, and senior Jesse Carlin's win in the 800m run.
"I went out really fast, took the lead in the first hundred and extended it," said Carlin, who won by about three seconds.
Her 2:08.08 time provisionally qualified her for the NCAA Championships.
Morgan, meanwhile, was confident coming into Sunday's 200m dash; she entered with the fastest qualifying time.
"It was a flat track, you have to adjust, expect that the times aren't going to be as fast," Morgan said. "I got out really well and just maintained coming off the back stretch." Morgan finished with an ECAC-qualifying time of 24.57 seconds.
Other top individual finishers for the Quakers included senior Stacy Kim, who finished second in the one-mile run, with an ECAC-qualifying time of 4:49.69. Junior Camille Richard's 11.90-meter jump landed her in fourth in the Triple Jump, while pole vaulter Yelizaveta Lozovatskaya qualified for ECACs with a vault of 3.60 meters.
Though the meet ended with a disappointing fifth place finish, individual standout performances proved to be a bright spot in the forecast for the spring season.
"It was rough," said Carlin of the weekend's final outcome. "We don't have the numbers like the other teams. There were a couple of mistakes, other teams can afford to do that . But there were some great performances."
On the men's side, the Quakers finished with 44 points. Cornell took first with 205. Senior Tim Kaijala finished first in the 1000m run with a time of 2:24.57, the Quakers' only individual win of the day.
The mid-distance relay teams finished with a strong showing as well. Penn finished second in the 4x400m relay (with a time of 3:17.68) and first in the 4x800m (7:37.12).
The Quakers ran well in the Heptathlon as well, earning three spots among the top 10 finishers: Senior Mike Hall finished in fourth place, followed by senior Kyle Calvo in sixth and junior Max Westman in seventh.
Men's coach Charlie Powell could not be reached for comment.
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