M. Track a disappointing seventh at Heps

The Penn men's track team, which won Heps in '97 and took second last year, turned in a seventh-place finish. The good news: the Penn men's track team finished seventh at Heptagonals. The bad news: There were only nine teams competing. "It was crappy," Penn sophomore Kyle Turley said. The Quakers unexpectedly finished behind six teams at Heps -- the championship meet for the eight Ivy League schools and Navy -- held at Cornell's Barton Hall. Penn assistant coach Nathan Taylor thought that the Quakers failed to perform up to their potential. "Yeah, I thought with a good meet, we could have finished better, [possibly] third," Taylor said. "Princeton this year is ranked No. 10 in the country, Navy is No. 14 and Harvard is 30th, but we've been spoiled by our past successes. This is probably the lowest finish that a Penn track team has had in 10 years." The seventh-place finish was especially hard for Penn's upperclassmen, who won a championship in 1997 and barely placed second to Princeton last season. "Everybody was disappointed, [especially] the older members -- it was embarrassing," Penn senior Stan Anderson said. "There's nothing to be happy about, really. I think we could've done better." Princeton dominated the meet and won the Ivy title for the second consecutive year with a total of 137 points, with five first-place finishes including the 4x400-meter relay. Navy finished a distant second with 90 points, including four firsts. Navy's Michael Ryan had two of those first-place finishes en route to being named "Outstanding Heps Performer." Brown finished third with 79, Columbia had 68 points, Dartmouth had 67.5, Harvard scored 56 and Penn followed in seventh with 49.5 points. Cornell and Yale tied for eighth place with 21 points apiece. Though the Quakers lacked the depth to provide serious competition to some of the better teams, including the Tigers, they did manage to claim several outstanding individual achievements. Penn junior Matt Pagliasotti had a breakthrough performance, taking first in the weight throw with a personal-best distance of 59'6.75". Turley claimed fourth in that event with a throw of 57'1.5", also a personal record. "For each athlete it's a little different," Taylor said. "The athletes that have been there before did fine. Matt was exceptional -- his performance was more than anyone could ask for, to PR by 10 percent." Penn sophomore pole vaulter Aaron Prokopec contributed with a 16'0.75" vault to earn second-place. Penn captain Dan Nord took third in the long jump with a leap of 23'6.75", but barely missed beating his twin brother from Brown, Jeff, who finished first in the battle for family supremacy. "Dan did very well, considering he's still getting his jumping bearings back," Taylor said. "He almost won it [with a jump that was] barely foul." One of Penn's most consistent athletes, Anderson, once again finished first in the triple jump with a leap of 51', something he has done many times this season. His understudy, freshman Tuan Wreh, jumped 48'6" to claim fifth place. "I feel good," Anderson said. "It was not as far as I wanted to go [though] -- I wanted to PR." But despite the successes in the field events, Penn could only muster a disappointing three points on the track. The Quakers were missing runners Scott Clayton and Andrew Girardin due to injuries that occurred just before the meet. A couple of athletes fell during their races and one athlete was disqualified for pushing while racing. "Some of the guys really did not do it," Taylor said. "To have some of the guys fall in races didn't help any. It's an awfully young squad. A lot of the guys had never been there before. "If guys on the team don't see that they need to have a much greater commitment, they'll be destined to see the same kinds of things [during the outdoor season]."

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