On Halloween morning, the sun rose on a daunting challenge for the men and women of Penn cross country: the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships at Van Cortlandt Park in New York City.
Princeton came out on top once again at this year’s Ivy Heps, extending their win streak to five for the men's team and establishing back-to-back victories on the women’s side. The Tigers’ roster also features individual winners Anna McNatt and Myles Hogan.
Despite victories against Princeton earlier this season, the Quaker women placed fourth overall, an improvement from their seventh-place finish last season. Top performer senior Lily Murphy was notably absent on the women's side, whereas other Quaker mainstay senior Lara Cota underperformed.
While the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships always brings challenges of its own, Van Cortlandt Park is a formidable arena. It features just two flat sections, with the rest of the race veering through narrow cowpaths and looping hilly trails. This is a notable difference from a majority of the courses the Quakers have raced at this season, which have been mostly flat with the exception of the Paul Short course at Lehigh University.
Senior Anna Weirich and junior Gabby Jones filled in the gaps with a ninth- and thirteenth-place finish respectively, nabbing All-Ivy Second-Team honors. Junior Sarah Fischer finished 21st in 21:55, missing All-Ivy honors by five seconds. Sophomore Courtney Kaiser and freshman Izzy Rodriguez round out the Quakers’ scoring finishes. This core group of Quakers stayed close throughout the race, with a finish differential of 43 seconds between Weirich and Rodriguez.
“This year’s team is very deep.” Jones said in a statement to the Daily Pennsylvanian. “We try to work together during races as much as possible and discuss specific pack strategies prior to the race. We lift each other up, challenge one another, and make each other better every day.”
On the men’s side, the Quakers fell from a fourth-place finish at last year’s Ivy Heps to a seventh-place finish this year. Junior Kofi Fordjour led the Penn men with a 18th-place finish in 25:14. Seniors Nick Carpenter and Sahil Dodda followed close behind, finishing 32nd and 38th in 25:43 and 25:50, respectively. Junior George Keen and senior Liam Going closed out the scoring lineup.
Although Fordjour has solidified himself as a top performer with breakout performances throughout the season, the Quaker men have still not completely recovered from the loss of Dylan Throop and Luke Johnson. Throop and Johnson both individually qualified for the 2024 NCAA Division I Cross-Country Championship; both now compete at the graduate level for Notre Dame and Georgetown, respectively.
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Looking ahead, the Quakers will return to Lehigh for NCAA DI Mid-East Regionals on Nov. 14, where hopeful runners look to hitch a ride to nationals.
“As a team, we all want to have strong races and improve our times and performances from last race [The Paul Short Run],” Jones said. “There’s nothing to lose, so we are going to go out there, take some risks, and compete to the best of our abilities.”
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