W. Track competes against nation's best

The Penn women's track team faced some fierce competition over the weekend in State College, Pa. at the Penn State National Meet. "There were some open athletes who were outstanding as well as many high-powered teams we hadn't seen this season," Penn coach Gwen Harris said. "Tennessee, Clemson, UVA and James Madison were several of the top teams who were there." Still, the Quakers turned in some great performances. The 4x400m team of Natalie Jackson, Petra Stewart, Susan Eisenberg and Crystal Marsh improved its season-best time and was two seconds away from qualifying for the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference championships. The team finished in 3:58.94, good enough for a 14th place. Individually, co-captain Crystal Marsh ran her first 500 of the season. With a time of 1:20.09, Marsh finished 27th. "I ran cautiously because my knee was bothering me, but I was satisfied with the race," Marsh said. Sophomore Izukanne Emeagwali ran well against some of the best sprinters in the country. Her 8.07 60m dash and 26.13 200m in the preliminaries did not earn her a spot in the finals, but Harris was pleased nonetheless. She was also happy with sophomore Samantha Crook's pole vault. Although Crook did not perform as well as she did last week, her 3.5m vault was good enough for a tenth place finish. "Sam looked good. Last week she was exceptional, and she just can't set a personal record at every meet," Harris said. Recovering from an injury, Grace Maloney also jumped well. Her 5'4 1/4" high jump put her in ninth place behind top jumpers from Morgan State, Pittsburgh, and Penn State. Referring to past meets as 'pretty low key,' captain Marsh explained that in the throwing events at Penn State, the minimum criteria for gaining a score was set higher than most meets. Although several girls were unable to throw the distances that could make them contenders to earn points, Marsh said that they all turned in solid performances and reached personal goals. Among them was Charity Payne, whose 13.03m shot put throw was good enough to put her in 15th place overall. Still looking to improve, Marsh said that the throwers anticipate future sucess. The distance events were dominated by teams such as Villanova, Columbia and Georgetown. Penn was represented in these events by Emily Logan's 5:18.63 mile, Claire Duncan's 11:00.14 3000m run, and Emily Turner's 18:34.73 5000m run. Up against fewer competitors, junior Kai Ivory met success in the pentathlon. She competed against other diverse athletes in five events, with an overall performance that put her in third place. Harris said that she has been working with Ivory, as well as the rest of the runners, on learning how to race better in competitive situations. "I feel like collectively they did a good job this weekend. We have to take it one meet at a time."

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