Trackman Gorham leaps to victory in Princeton

John Gorham's victory in the long jump highlighted Penn State's performance at the IC4A championships at Princeton last weekend.

Gorham helped lead the Lions to a 23rd-place finish overall with his winning leap of 24 feet, 8 inches. Georgetown captured the IC4A title by scoring 81 points, easily holding off second-place Connecticut, which tallied 37.5 points.

The Nittany Lions would have finished much higher overall but were shorthanded, as some of their best runners weren't in Princeton. Che Arosemena, Keven Spencer and Big Ten champion in the 800-meter run Joe Loner led Penn State to an eighth-place finish in the distance medley relay (9 minutes, 59 seconds) in Atlanta at the USA indoor track and field championships.

In addition to Gorham's efforts at Princeton, the Lions also received strong performances from Sean Vego, who took sixth in the high jump (6 feet, 10 inches), Nate Goins, who finished seventh in the 55-meter high hurdles (7.62 seconds) and Damon Reed, who finished 10th in the 200-meter run (22.22 seconds).

Penn State coach Harry Groves was pleased with the team's performance at Princeton.

"We did pretty well," he said. "Gorham had a great effort. Vego, Goins and Reed all had, or were close to having, career bests."

Neal McNutt finished eighth in the 35-pound weight throw at IC4As with a toss of 60 feet but was unable clinch a berth in the NCAA championships. McNutt went into IC4As 13th in the country but slipped to 21st after Sunday. Only the top 14 throwers go to Indianapolis for NCAAs, so McNutt's successful indoor season came to an end in Princeton.

"I didn't have a strong showing this weekend," he said. "The pressure was higher on me than it ever was before. Everyone was looking for me to do something, but I just had a bad day. It hurts to end the indoor season this way."

The Lions will not be sending anyone to NCAAs, so the IC4A meet was the finale of the indoor season. Groves said injuries and illness made for a trying season.

"I think this season will be looked at as a learning experience," he said. "We had a lot of mishaps and sicknesses, and it got to the point where it was hard for us to compete at a Big Ten championship level."

Penn State now will get ready for the outdoor track season, which begins March 13 at Texas A&M. Arosemena is one Lion who said he is looking forward to the start of the outdoor season.

"The indoor season has been a battle. I can't wait to get on an outdoor track," he said. "For some reason good things seem to happen for me when I run outdoors."

The Lions will try to build on the success of the 1996 outdoor season when it took third in the hotly contested Big Ten.