Weekend results disappoint W. Track

Going into the Penn State National meet, the Penn women's track team knew that the weekend would serve as a litmus test for their progress thus far. Unfortunately for the Quakers, the results of that test were less than satisfactory. "We're not really where we need to be right now," Penn co-captain Monica Maccani said. The field of 54 teams had a drastically different look than the field in most of the other meets the Quakers have attended. The Penn State Invitational featured tougher competition -- including UCLA, the top-ranked collegiate team in the nation. Penn was disheartened by the fact that it was not able to compete with the perennial powers, but the Quakers were even more disheartened by the poor times they posted. "It [the meet] gave us a little wake-up call in terms of training," Maccani said. "We need to train a little harder if we're going to be able to compete at Heps." Teams like Princeton and Navy, who compete against the Quakers at Heps and the ECACs, fared better against the tough competition. Princeton posted a faster time than Penn in the 4x400 relay, despite the fact that the Quakers' relay team ran their best race of the year. The poor showings in many of the events should encourage the Red and Blue to train harder in preparation for the end-of-year meets. "Some of the girls really need to step it up," Maccani said. "We talked about it this weekend and now we know what we have to do." But there were some non-motivational positives that came out of the weekend meet. Many of the Penn runners were given their first opportunity to compete on a banked track similar to the one at Harvard, where both the ECACs and Heps will be held this indoor season. There were also a few strong individual performances, including Meredith Bunche's personal-best triple jump of 38'7.5". "I've been jumping well all season, but all of my best jumps have been fouls," Bunche said. "It was really nice and a real relief to finally get a measured jump that was good." The heightened level of competition, while preventing the Quakers from placing highly, spurred some members of the Penn women's track team to better performances. "Competing against big schools like North Carolina and UCLA that we don't usually compete against definitely makes you want to step up and compete with them," Bunche said. Meeting this challenge ably was the distance medley relay team of Caitlin Driscoll, Samantha Desposito, Mercy Okoye and Alexandra Bliss. The quartet finished in a solid time of 12:08.

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