PHILADELPHIA – The Belmont Plateau Hall of Fame is set to induct its sixth class on Saturday, and the University of Pennsylvania's 1971 men's cross country team will be a part of the ceremony as the Outstanding XC team.
 
Led by long-time head coach James 'Tup' Tuppeny, the 1971 Quaker squad finished third at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, the best team finish by an Ivy League cross country team in Ancient Eight history.
 
Earlier in the season, Penn ran a close second to defending NCAA champion Villanova at the Big Five meet (run at Belmont Plateau) and IC4A Championships, and nearly shut out the Ivy Heptagonal field with only 19 points, still the lowest winning score in Heps history. The team was led by freshman Dave Merrick at Heps, as he ran 24:31 across the challenging five-mile Van Cortlandt Park course in New York City.
 
At the NCAA Championships race held in Knoxville, Tennessee, the Quakers finished their memorable season in third place behind a pair of distance powerhouses, Oregon (led by individual champion Steve Prefontaine) and Washington State. With 101 points, Penn defeated cross-town rival Villanova which finished fourth with 122 points.

The Quakers were led by the All-America Merrick (18th), Robert Childs (43rd), Julio Piazza (46th), Dennis Fikes (75th) and Karl Thornton (81st) as the top five scorers. Frank O'Connor and Elliott Rogers rounded out Penn's top seven.
 
This will be the second time Tuppeny and Merrick are being inducted into the Belmont Plateau Hall of Fame, as Tuppeny was in the inaugural class in 2017 and Merrick was part of the second class in 2018.