M. Track readies for final meet of regular season

The Penn men's track team heads to Boston University's Armory as several Quakers athletes gun for the IC4As. Now that Dan "Captain" Nord has returned to competition for the Penn men's track team, one would think that qualifying for the IC4A meet would be the next item on his list of things to do -- but it isn't. When the Penn men's track team travels to the Boston University Armory this Saturday for the St. Valentine's Invitational, the last meet before Heptagonals, the senior will be competing for family bragging rights. Nord will be looking to defeat his twin brother, Jeff, a Brown University long jumper. "My twin brother will be there so I can't look like a wuss," Nord said. "Whenever I compete against him, I want to do well. It's a good sibling rivalry -- it adds to the whole dynamic of the competition. I wouldn't call it friendly, it's friendly except when you lose, and then you're pissed off. "The ICs thing I'm not that worried about, because we've got Heps and you always jump well at Heps." As the last meet of the season closes in upon the Quakers, they will stick to the same game plan they have had all season -- they are looking to drop times and improve distances. "My expectations are that [the athletes] compete with real fire, that they really show that they want it," Penn assistant coach Nathan Taylor said. "They are good people, they work hard and they're still learning to find the fire of competition. There are a couple of people that really have it." Although Nord may not feel the urgency of qualifying for the IC4A meet, there are several members of the team that are feeling the pressure to perform well at the Invite. After three pole vaulters placed in the top four spots at the Terrier Classic, only one managed to record a height at the Delaware Invitational last weekend. Now that they have been working with a new pole and have been fine-tuning their vaults, they are hoping to repeat their previous success at Boston, where they placed first, third and fourth earlier this year. "Everyone's working on little tiny things and we're all so close," Penn sophomore Luke Stokes said. "If we can just put everything together, we're going to have four of the best jumpers in the league. It's just a matter of getting all of the little tiny things fixed." This is especially important because none of Penn's vaulters has yet qualified for IC4As. "I would like to [qualify] this weekend," Penn sophomore Aaron Prokopec said. "It's kind of discouraging that I made it last year and I haven't made it yet this year. "I think that right now a lot of people aren't mentally ready for the meet. We should realistically have everybody over 15'6" [or] 16' now." This will also provide a good opportunity for the runners to drop precious seconds from their times on the banked track at Boston, especially the members of the 4x400-meter relay that are on the brink of qualifying for IC4As. "This meet is good to get a good time so [the athletes] will have confidence, but also to get a good time for the IC4As," Penn senior Stan Anderson said. "At Delaware, while you may not have the great competition, you want to get a good time," he added. "At Boston, you have great competition, you want to get a good time and it's a great track." The Quakers are finally starting to pull everything together for the end of the indoor season and the beginning of the outdoor season. "Really, we're just starting," Nord said. "The weightlifting is going to tail off so everything's going to feel a little better. We have to start to control and use the extra power that we're going to get from not training as hard."

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