M. Track facing tough foes in N. Carolina

Fifty-three events. Twenty-five hundred athletes. One hundred and fifty four teams. The Quakers have their work cut out for themselves. The Penn men's track team heads south this weekend to compete today and tomorrow at the Raleigh Relays in Raleigh, N.C., where the Quakers will face some of their toughest competition for the 1998-99 season. Big-name track schools like South Carolina, Auburn, Minnesota, Wisconsin -- in addition to most of the schools from the ACC and many Big East schools -- will compete in this meet, raising the caliber of competition to a world-class level. Also featured at this competition are events that are not normally contested such as the sprint medley relay, the distance medley relay, the 4x200-meter relay and the 4x800-meter relay. Despite the tough competition, the Quakers will still be looking to turn some heads. If that is to happen, it will probably come in the field events, much like it has all season. Penn has a talented throwing and jumping core and some of the athletes should place well, if the past is any indication. Penn coach Nathan Taylor thinks that throwers Matt Pagliasotti and Kyle Turley have the potential to crack the top six and that senior jumpers Stan Anderson, Rich Carlson and captain Dan Nord are also expected to do well. This could also be the meet in which pole vaulters Aaron Prokopec and Luke Stokes put everything together and clear 16 feet. "I think in some events, we'll be competitive -- we've got guys in five or six events who have been in the top six finishers before," Taylor said. "But we also have a lot of younger kids who have never been at this meet." The freshman class has not yet lived up to preseason expectations. However, this is only the second meet of the outdoor season and many of the first-year athletes had promising results at last Sunday's Quaker Invitational. This meet will provide them with an opportunity to improve drastically as the weather is predicted to be more conducive to running than last weekend's cold deluge at Franklin Field. For today's events, a 30 percent chance of showers and a high in the 50s is expected and tomorrow's weather calls for a high in the 60s and partly sunny skies. "I expect to throw good," Turley said. "I prefer it to rain. I don't know how I'll do, though -- the competition is intense but I feel like I'm living large." Ideally, the weather will cooperate for the athletes returning from injury this weekend. After watching numerous players get hurt during the winter, the Quakers would like to avoid a repeat in the outdoor season. This weekend in North Carolina they will welcome back two sprinters to the running corps in hopes of seeing improvements, and the IC4A-qualifying relay team will be reunited for the first time since the indoor season began. But Taylor is uncertain how the group will perform compared to the field event athletes. "On the track it's going to be a different story," Taylor said. "[But] Mike Aguilar is coming back from an injury and Steve Faulk is coming back from an injury." This meet will provide a good yardstick to measure the growth of the team since the end of the indoor season. Many of the athletes stayed over break to train and they would like to see the hard work pay off with a respectable Penn showing in North Carolina. "We've really used these last two weeks of practice for some very heavy training," Taylor said. And Penn is hoping that practice makes perfect.

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