Etrain Team Power Rankings: #16 Penn Quakers

By: Garrett Zatlin

Reminder of the list so far...

#25 Eastern Michigan Eagles

#24 Penn State Nittany Lions

#23 Minnesota Gophers

#22 Cornell Bears
#21 Furman Paladins
#20 Florida State Seminoles

#19 Colorado State Rams

#18 Tulsa Golden Hurricanes

#17 NC State Wolfpack

#16 Penn Quakers

#15 Virginia Tech Hokies

#14 UCLA Bruins

#13 BYU Cougars

#12 Louisville Cardinals

#11 Michigan Wolverines

#10 Virginia Cavaliers

#09 Oregon Ducks

#08 Oklahoma State Cowboys

#07 Iona Gaels

#06 Mississippi Rebels

#05 Villanova Wildcats

#04 Wisconsin Badgers

#03 Syracuse Orange 

#02 Stanford Cardinals
#01 Colorado Buffalos

16. Penn Quakers

Flotrack’s #16: UCLA Bruins

Coach: Steve Dolan

Notable Departures: Connor Paez, John Trueman
Notable Additions: Luke Petela

Projected Scoring Five: Tommy Awad (SR) [ET#18], Brenden Shearn (JR), Nick Tuck (JR), Ross Wilson (SO), Lyle Wistar (JR)

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There are two types of people reading this. The first one is from Pennsylvania and is happy to see all of the PA alumni here. The other reader is a serious fan of the sport and is shaking his (or her) head right now…But the best part about all of this is that Sean Collins will most likely make fun of Fox for having Penn higher than Cornell. Anyways, the Ivy League is wide open this year with the always-dominant Princeton Tigers graduating a nice chunk of their squad. The Penn Quakers are right in line to take that title and be competitive beyond their conference.

Last year, the Penn Quakers entered the season pretty underrated. Historically they hadn’t been great during XC. However, the addition of new individuals and solid recruiting was putting the program on the rise. The team started off their season at the Big 5 Invite where colleges around the Philadelphia area gathered to make their season debuts. Penn would sweep the event with ease. The next stop would be the Main Line Invite. Although some teams weren’t fully stacked, the field was brimming with top individual talent like Ryan Mahalsky  (Lehigh), Patrick Tiernan (Villanova), Charlie Marquardt (Haverford), and of course Penn’s Tom Awad. No team scores were recorded, but Penn placed five in the top eleven. The first true test of the season would come at Notre Dame and what a test it was…Awad had an excellent race finishing 4^th overall. However, Shearn was the next closest scorer at 63^rd. The rest of the scorers became much too spread out and the team was crushed by a time-spread of 1:20. Penn placed 15^th overall. While it wasn’t the best performance ever, it’s important to note that Connor Paez and John Trueman had very off days and were the sixth and seventh men. The sub-standard race was set aside, and the Quakers went back to work focused on November. The Princeton XC Invite would be the next stop on the list. Top D1 talents like Virginia Tech and Villanova were entered as well as most of the Ivy League. It would be very interesting to see if Penn could rebound from Notre Dame. Yet, one thing was for sure: Tommy Awad wasn’t going to slow down. The man continued to establish himself as the lead Quaker by taking the meet title over some very underrated individuals. Awad, however, was not the only good thing about Penn. The Quakers rallied together and got themselves a third place finish behind two very solid teams in Villanova and Virginia Tech. Even more interesting was that they placed third without Connor Paez. The depth was finally starting to come together, but would it be enough for the Ivy League championships? The Quakers took a ride back to Princeton to compete against their rivals. Penn entered the race ready and confident having done so well the week before. In this case, however, lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. Awad still got his Heps title. The Quakers did not. Princeton’s depth came together and put on an outstanding 30-point performance. Cornell surprised many with their runner-up finish mainly due to their new front man that no one had expected (Dominic Deluca). Penn fell back to third and returned to Philadelphia with a very unsatisfying bronze. Now it was Mid-Atlantic’s. The regional race would be very deep and filled with familiar competition. Awad was being predicted for the individual title, while many suggested that Princeton could be a contender after their impressive Heps showing. Throw in squads like Penn State and Georgetown, and Penn was an afterthought. As the race unfolded, it was clear why those teams were being talked about. 16 of the top 20 places belonged to either Nova, Georgetown, Penn State, or Princeton. Penn simply couldn’t match that depth. Awad grabbed third while Paez was 20 spots behind. Shearn and Tuck did an excellent job of placing in the top 40, but their freshman fifth (Ross Wilson) didn’t have the experience to keep up. Penn would finish 6^th overall, 8 points behind Navy.

It’s clear that Penn has some work to do. I won’t argue that. What I will argue, is that it may have taken a year for some of these guys to really settle in. What I really like about this team is not what happened last fall, but rather last spring. I believe that if you can run a good steeplechase, you can be competitive in XC. Penn should hope that’s true considering they have two solid steeplechasers of their own. Nick Tuck ran a very impressive 8:46 steeplechase this past spring and was in the talks to make nationals. Ross Wilson also had a very solid steeplechase time of 8:59, which is outstanding for a freshman when you consider they probably had never done one before. When you look at 5k times, they are also very solid (Awad- 13:33, Shearn-14:16, Wilson-14:23, Tuck-14:23). Except for Tuck’s 5k, all of those times were hit last spring. That is some excellent improvement and can make a for a very dangerous scoring group during cross. I put Wistar as my 5^th man mainly because he is very consistent and has some experience in the big races. The Quakers will also have a very solid group of rising sophomores to pick from. Watch out for Pat Halley and Thomas Connelly as they could have an impact and contribute to Penn’s depth.

Yes, I understand how far-fetched this sounds. A team that couldn’t even get top five at regionals is the 16^th best team in the nation. Is it a gut-instinct pick? Yeah. But I truly believe in this team. They have the potential, the coach, the leader, the experience, and the times to have something big. Penn may not hold the 16^th spot all season, BUT they will win Heps and place top three at regionals this year IF they can stay healthy. You can take that to the bank.