W. Track Breaks Record at ECACs

Last weekend at the Boston University indoor track, six members of the Harvard women's track team competed in the ECACs, matching up against the best athletes from around the East Coast.

The meet, which for many teams is the main event of the season, has tough qualifying standards, and thus getting there is an achievement in itself.

The highlight of the meet for the Crimson was the record-breaking run of the one-mile relay team. After last week's unfortunate disqualification at the Heptagonals, all four members had something to prove.

Despite the loss of freshman Heather Hanson to injury, the team went into Saturday's heat confident that it could break the Harvard record and qualify for Sunday's final.

The team consisted of freshman Afia Asamoah, freshman Lee Shearer, sophomore Allison Goldkamp and senior co-captain Amanda Williams.

Running strongly and confidently for the entire race, they finished with a time of 3:49.12 minutes, just under the mark they set against Brown and Cornell at the end of January.

The time also qualified them for Sunday's final, but because of a recurrent tendinitis problem, Williams--who had pulled out of the individual 400 meters earlier--was not able to run.

The other Harvard representatives were sophomores Margaret Angell (mile) and Heather Stroud (1000 meter). Neither managed to make it out of their respective heats, but "they both ran really gutsy races," said Williams.

Angell, who had finished an excellent third in the Heptagonals last weekend, found it difficult to raise her performance one more time and finished the mile in 5:07.43 minutes.

Stroud on the other hand ran close to her best time for the 1000 meter event (3:00.21). Both will have undoubtedly learned a lot from the experience and can expect to be more competitive when they face such caliber athletes in the future.

This meet completed the end of a long competitive indoor season which started back on December 3 against Boston College.

While the athletes who competed at the weekend will get a week off practice, the rest of the team returns to full practice today, with the goal for the outdoor season being a victory at the outdoor Heptagonals in New Haven.