Christine Rummel can't win for, well, winning.

The junior Grove City College four-event track and field star and former Knoch High School standout is having another solid year for the Wolverines.

But her season hasn't exactly gone smoothly.

Rummel thought she had won the MVP award at the Presidents' Athletic Conference meet, scoring 32 individual points.

She had the plaque in hand when it was taken from her.

Kandice Gibson of Thiel College had 30 individual points, but she also was on two winning relay teams, giving her an extra five points and the MVP award.

"I was really surprised and excited when I won it," Rummel said. "Then when I lost it, I was bummed. But, hey, she scored more points than me, so she deserved it.

"But I was so close."

It's been that kind of year for Rummel, who is poised to qualify in four events for the East Coast Athletic Conference meet for the second straight season.

But first, she has to deal with the pesky business of shaving a tenth of a second off her 400-meter hurdles time.

Her time of 1 minutes, 7.64 seconds this season would easily have qualified her for the event last year. But the ECAC cut three seconds off the qualifying time this season.

The qualifying time is now 1:07.2. Last year, Rummel set the Grove City College record at the ECAC meet with a time of 1:07.3.

"I have to break it again to qualify," Rummel said.

She has one more chance this weekend when Grove City welcomes 20 teams to its end-of-the-season invitational.

Slippery Rock University is one of them and The Rock will bring its stable of excellent hurdlers.

Rummel has qualified in the 100-meter hurdles, the long jump and the triple jump.

She placed third at the PAC meet in the 100-meter hurdles this season after winning the event as a sophomore. Her time of 16.36 was faster than her winning time in 2003.

She finished behind teammates Lauren Bigley and Kelly Costello.

"That was just kind of all about the team, there," Rummel said. "We all finished within a tenth of a second of each other."

Last year, Rummel also qualified in the 100 and 400 hurdles, as well as the long and triple jump, and placed in three of them.

If points were given to athletes for getting from event to event the quickest, Rummel would score even more for the Wolverines.

"I'm always running from one event to another," Rummel said. "It's hard to cool down from the 400 hurdles and then go to the triple jump."

Saturday, Rummel will branch out to other events as she is running a leg in Grove City's 400-meter relay team - an event she hasn't run before.

But the 400 hurdles is her main event. Last year she cut three seconds off her fastest time.

"I think it has to do with a lot of confidence," Rummel said. "The first two years when I came here, I never ran in the 60s (seconds), but I went from running in the 70s to 67. I think I am in a little better shape. I can go out and attack the hurdles."

She hopes to be attacking them at the ECAC meet. Next season, she wants to leave little doubt about qualifying.

"My goal is to run two seconds faster next year," Rummel said.