M. Track hopes to win Heps

The Penn men's track team is determined to beat archrival Princeton and win Heps. The Penn men's track team will be competing for the Ivy League championship in Cornell this weekend. One anonymous thrower would like to throw the long-jump mat into the Schuylkill River if the Quakers win the championship, but that isn't feasible because Ithaca is a six-hour drive and an even farther walk. Fortunately, Penn does have other ways to celebrate a victory. "We get to run around the track with a big trophy," Penn senior high jumper Rich Carlson said. But that is only if the Quakers win. Penn must outscore seven other Ivy schools and Navy over the period of two days at Heptagonals to bring home bragging rights and a big trophy. "We're going to go out there, we're going to give it everything we've got, hopefully we're going to score some points," Penn coach Charles Powell said. Although there will be several stand-out athletes from multiple schools, the team to beat is still Princeton, the defending indoor and outdoor champion. The memory of last year's narrow loss to the Tigers is still fresh in the mind of the Quakers, giving them more incentive to try to de-throne the reigning champions than just the unwritten rule that all Penn sports teams should try to pummel Princeton whenever possible. "Princeton is going to be in the way for contention of the Ivy League title," Penn sophomore Mike Aguilar said. "The other schools have individual top performers but Princeton is still a well-rounded team." The Penn-Princeton rivalry is the most notable one this weekend, as one of these two teams has won the last five Ivy League track titles, but it is not the only side where competition will take place. Penn's captain Dan Nord and his twin brother from Brown, Jeff, will be competing in the long jump for family bragging rights. Dan has been hindered by a knee injury through most of the 1998-99 season but he is not going to just hand Jeff the victory. Dan admits that beating his brother would be "really nice," but he will mainly focus on scoring points for his team. The pressure will be on all of the Quakers this weekend as this is the only meet that counts towards the title, as opposed to other sports where the champion is determined throughout the course of the season. The athletes must build on the six meets of the indoor season and improve their performances. "This is the meet of the year," Aguilar said. "Last week was just a glimpse of what we can do. I'm expecting to run really well. With what I've seen this past weekend, I think we can be competitive." The freshmen on the team will experience a Heps meet for the first time, so they don't quite know what to expect. "[If] you hype them up, [then] they don't perform," Powell said. "Before they walk in there, they're excited." "It's one of those things, it's kind of hard to hype up a freshman," Aguilar said. "You really don't realize what it is until you get there -- to them its just another track meet." After an injury-plagued season, the Quakers hope to be healthy for this meet after having reduced work-outs and time to heal. "I think the team should do well overall with more people coming back off of injuries," Penn sophomore Kyle Turley said. "We should be in a better position, but I think some people may be a little rusty after not being capable of training for so long." The Red and Blue hope to see their star athletes perform to potential this weekend and try to erase the bad memories from last year's loss. "You don't really realize how important a Heptagonals championship is until you lose it," Aguilar said.

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