W. Track Breaks Records At ECACs; Men Struggle

Harvard men's and women's track teams went to their conference championships looking for individual achievement.

The women's team went away with its performance at ECACs satisfied, but the men had less success at IC4As.

Harvard women featured another great performance by the four by 400 relay team, which broke its own school record with a time of 3:46.23.

"It was incredible because we just decided to run for fun, and it wasn't like a huge hype like Heps had been the week beforehand," said freshman Brenda Taylor. "None of us was nervous, and we just were going to go run. [Junior] Heather [Hanson] ran a lot faster opening lap--a second faster--than she ran the week before. It was amazing, we just came together as a team."

"It was a good meet, especially for the relay," said freshman 4x400 runner Marna Schutte. "We wanted to beat our own time because we broke the school record at Heps, so we were going into it planning to [break it again]."

Freshman high jumper Dora Gyorffy breezed to an easy win, jumping 1.86 meters and beating her nearest competitor by .13 meters.

"I had a little fever, so I didn't jump that well," Gyorffy said. "I felt really bad, but the competition wasn't too difficult. 1.86 [meters] is not bad, but I wanted to jump higher."

Gyorffy's indoor season isn't done yet, since she leaves Thursday for the NCAA championships in Indianapolis.

"I'm looking forward to it, and hopefully I will get real competition there," Gyorffy said. "It will be very hard actually; it's a different level of competition."

Senior co-captain Ali Goldkamp, the fourth member of the 4x400 relay, also qualified for the 800 meter finals, as did Margaret Angell in the mile.

For the men, junior co-captain Joe Ciollo was the only runner with tangible success.

He ran a season personal record 1:03.88 in the 500 meter finals, finishing fourth and earning second-team All-Ivy honors.

"The school record I have, 1:03.73, was run on a banked track a year ago, and I think that comparatively, the race that I ran on the Cornell flat track was a much stronger race because times are always faster on the banked tracks," Ciollo said.

"I was happy with the time and felt I ran really well, the greatest ran all season in the 500."

The structure of the final hurt Ciollo's chances to do better, however. The top 10 qualifiers were split into two groups, with the top five in one half and the bottom five in the other. Because Ciollo was sixth, he ran with the slower group.

"In the slower heat, I wasn't pushed as much as I would have liked to have been," Ciollo said. "I won my heat wire to wire, basically, so I had nobody to push me. I was happy with the fourth place finish, but I felt it would have been higher."

Still, Ciollo says, "It was good to end season on a high note."

Ciollo's teammates fared less well, with junior Scott Muoio running 4:20 in the mile after being stuck behind a few competitors early in the race.

Dominic Patillo ran a 1:56.2 in the 800 semis but failed to make the finals. Freshman Chuck Nwokocha could not run in the semifinals because of a recurring hamstring injury, and sophomore Mike Harte's time of 7.52 seconds in the 55 hurdles just missed the qualifying time for the finals.

"We only went up there with a handful of guys, and you can't expect much team-wise when you bring a handful of guys," Ciollo said. "It just turns into an individual track meet when everyone is just concentrating on his own race. You had to be really individually motivated running apart from your team."