Penn track and field extends East Coast tour

Students all across Penn’s campus are looking forward to flinging this weekend.

Penn’s track and field athletes don’t have the same aspiration, though, and it’s tough to blame them. After all, they have been flung all over the East Coast since the beginning of the outdoor season.

Following road trips to Florida, North Carolina and New Jersey — all within the past month — the Quakers will continue their tour of the eastern seaboard in Virginia for this weekend’s George Mason Invitational.

Coach Steve Dolan and his athletes are well aware that Spring Fling is taking place on campus, but Dolan insists that track-related activities take precedent.

“We don’t really plan our progression of meets around the calendar on campus,” he said. “Saturday at George Mason will be our main event this weekend.”

With big meets like the Penn Relays looming on the horizon, this weekend’s invitational represents the calm before the storm in the Quakers’ season in many respects.

But the George Mason Invitational will also give the Red and Blue another chance to perform against top competition as they have done all year, a chance that Dolan is mindful not to turn down.

“We’ve had a lot of success with George Mason over the years,” he said. “As the weather gets warmer, people get faster ... and we’ll see some out-of-region competition.”

This weekend will also provide an opportunity for several of Penn’s top distance runners — who rested at last week’s Sam Howell Invitational — to return to action.

“We raced pretty hard earlier in the season,” Dolan said. “We’re trying to get a few good weeks of training in for some of the longer distance runners.”

Chief among these runners is sophomore Thomas Awad, who appreciated the break after grueling cross country and indoor track seasons.

“The time off is important ... because we want to be at our best [at the end of the season],” he said.

This will also be the first race for Awad since his school-record 13:48.90 performance in the 5,000-meter race at the Raleigh Relays, and the race is still fresh in his mind.

“I expected to get the record eventually, so it was good to finally get that off my shoulders,” he said. “I was really happy with the time, and how I closed was the best part.”

Moving forward this season, Awad hopes to take the next step as a standout college athlete.

“I’m trying to make that mental jump to knowing that I can run with the best guys in the nation,” he said.

The team’s overall goals for the weekend are a bit ambiguous. However, Dolan does have high expectations for one of his event groups: the throwers.

The group has stood out in Penn’s deep pool of athletes, and some of the group’s elite have been sent on special assignments for the weekend. Sophomore Sam Mattis — fresh off a school-record discus throw — and freshman Noah Kennedy White will compete against a strong discus field at Texas over the weekend.

To the lay observer, it may seem like this weekend’s meet is dwarfed by the significance of Fling, and that may be the case. But with Penn Relays just two weeks away, Penn is looking to fling itself another step toward history.

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