W. X-C comfortable with fifth-place finish in New York

New York City's Van Cortlandt Park wasn't the most comforting of places for the Penn women's cross country team the past two years.

After this weekend's rare regular season race through a bit of the park's rolling landscape, though, the Quakers might feel more at home there now.

Nestled inside the northwest corner of the Bronx, N.Y., the 1,146-acre park -- and more specifically a 3.1-mile racing area within it -- was site of two recent season-ending disappointments for the Red and Blue.

In late October of both 1999 and 2000, the Quakers traveled there for the annual Heptagonal Championships hoping that their youth would not be a hindrance against the eight other teams.

Both times they finished in ninth place.

This season, with a bit more experience on its roster, Penn is determined to climb out of the Heps basement in any way.

The Quakers started that ascent Saturday by returning to Van Cortlandt Park for their season opener at the Fordham Invitational.

The Red and Blue did not run any regular season races at the park the last two years. Their poor season-ending performances may have been due in part to the team's unfamiliarity with the technical terrain.

"It's a tough course," said Penn's Kristen Koch, who finished in 50th place as a sophomore in last year's Heps. "The first mile's completely flat, and then you go into the woods and for about a mile and a half it's like straight up and down.

"The hills are easily what kills everybody."

The Quakers, though, did not fall flat this weekend.

Against a 20-team field that included reigning Fordham Invite champion Duke and Heps foes Columbia and Harvard, the Quakers finished in fifth place overall with 117 points.

Duke again took first place, La Salle second, and the Lions and Crimson tied for third with 99 points.

Koch said the team was "encouraged" by its performance -- especially the close finish behind Harvard, which finished a place ahead of Penn in last year's Heps.

"We didn't even run it as an all-out race -- we were a little bit more conservative on the first mile or two," said Koch, who crossed the line in 20th place with a time of 19:38. "And only being 18 points behind Harvard, we're not worried at all.... We should be able to easily beat them come Heps."

Sophomore Abbi Gleeson, Penn's top finisher in last year's Heps at 39th place, finished ninth on Saturday with a time of 19:02.

Finishing in under 20 minutes for the Quakers were senior Samantha Desposito (19:58) and -- in a positive for the team -- freshman Claire Duncan (19:52).

"We were really excited to have [Duncan] perform as well as she did," Koch said. "We needed at least one or two freshmen to come in a step up, and she definitely did."

With Heps just five meets away, the Quakers have a little bit of time to improve upon their positive start to the season.

But not so much time that they'll forget the course at Van Cortlandt Park.

"We definitely wanted to get a little bit of experience so we all know what it's like going in[to Heps]," Koch said. "It was a good opportunity to get on this course."

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