Men's Track satisfied with start

The Penn men's indoor track team had a strong showing at it's first meet this past weekend at Princeton.

Competing in a field of over 550 runners from 14 teams, the Quakers showed their athletic prowess while competing under pressure.

Leading Penn in one of the early events, senior Brian Abram pulled out a fourth-place finish in the 55 meter dash with a time of 6.64 against a highly competitive field.

Abram would go on to win the 500 meter in 1:05.15.

With numerous accolades already to his name from last year's historic season, Penn senior Sam Burley showed he's still on top with a first place finish in the 1000 meter with a time of 2:26.13.

Mike Lang finished five seconds behind his lauded senior teammate and claimed fifth place. The 1000 was the longest race for the Quakers, as the team didn't field any runners in the mile or the 3000.

Burley thought the team's impressive early result may be indicative of greater things to come.

"It was a nice opening meet, but not super-intense," Burley said. "We've been training since June, so this was mostly to get a meet in before winter break. We looked solid [we'll do well] as long as we don't get injured."

The intense preseason conditioning kept the Quakers at the top in many of the events, their toughest competitors being Princeton and Monmouth.

Penn senior Jared Shoemaker and junior Matt Wedge placed second and third in the 55 meter hurdles with a 7.70 and 7.74, respectively.

The Quakers' lengthy preseason preparation paid off both for the upperclassmen and the freshmen.

Rookie Joel Miller placed eighth in the 300 meter in 36.48, while Peter Cochran finished 11th, only five-tenths of a second back.

Miller, according to Penn coach Charlie Powell, had a "decent" leg in the freshman 4x400 meter relay along with freshman teammate Tim Fryett. The relay team finished surprisingly strong, just three seconds behind first-place Princeton with a time of 3:24.10.

"[Miller] is going to be really good," Powell said. "He's going to surprise a lot of people.

"We ran pretty competitively in most of the races. We didn't do a lot of technique work in the fall, mostly conditioning. This meet showed we still have much to work on, but overall this was a great preseason meet."

Miller expressed his enthusiasm from the team's unexpectedly impressive results.

"It was an exciting meet," he said. "We weren't expected to do well, but I guess we showed that we will be competitive this season, hopefully coming out on top."

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