W. Track Dominates H-Y-P Meet

The Harvard women's track team--now ranked sixth in the nation in the latest USTCA Power rankings--is showing no signs of letting down as it prepares to defend its Indoor Heptagonal title at Gordon Track in two weeks.

On Saturday at Princeton, the Crimson (6-0. 4-0 Ivy) took the H-Y-P meet in convincing fashion, scoring 71 points to bury Yale's 55 and Princeton's 32. Harvard has not lost an indoor track meet in either of the past two seasons.

Co-captain Brenda Taylor won three events and beat two meet records to lead the way. Senior high-jumper Dora Gyorffy also bolstered the team with the highest collegiate jump in the country this season. It was her first Crimson tri-meet since taking the semester off to compete in the Sydney Olympics.

The Crimson men (3-3, 1-3 Ivy) had to settle for third with 38 points, just short of 43 points by Yale and far back of Princeton's 89. Harvard's lone winners were junior Shawn Parker in the 55-meter hurdles and senior Arthur Fergusson in the triple jump.

The Crimson captains Chris Clever and John Kraay both set personal records--Clever in the weight throw and Kraay in the shot put--each of which was good enough for second place in the highly competitive field.

Harvard Women

The Crimson women dominated the meet with team-wide improvement across the board. The team set personal records in nearly every event, which bodes well for its potential at Heps.

"The makeup of this team is a little different from last year," said co-captain Marna Schutte. "But we still have a lot of people returning from last year and we're as strong, if not stronger."

The improvement began at the very top with Taylor. Fresh off a blazing 54.80 second-time in the 400-meter dash last week at the New Balance Invitational, Taylor kept the fire going this weekend with three impressive victories, two of which beat out her school record times from last year's Heps.

She finished the 55-meter dash in 7.08 seconds to match her school record, and shaved a few hundredths of her school record in the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 7.85 seconds.

Sophomores Alayna Miller and Amanda Shanklin and senior Kathryn Ousley finished right behind Taylor to give the Crimson a clean sweep in the 55-meter hurdles.

Taylor won the 200-meter dash in 24.72 seconds, while Schutte placed second in a season-best time of 25.61 seconds. Schutte also won the 400 convincingly in another season-best of 55.98 seconds.

The Harvard 4x400 relay time won comfortably at 3:51.08. Junior Leeann Hymas's third-place finish in the mile was the Crimson's lone score in the distance runs.

Gyorffy, showing no ill effects from the injuries that plagued her at the Millrose Games last week, cleared the 1.93-meter bar to win the high jump, and surpass the Automatic Qualifying height for NCAAs. It was the highest jump by a collegiate jumper in the country this season, eclipsing the Dec. 2 mark of teammate sophomore Kart Siilats, who jumped 1.83 meters to place second behind Gyorffy on Saturday.

Harvard's score was also bolstered by the return of both freshman pole vaulter Andrea Li and sophomore jumper Helena Ronner after a lengthy absence. Li cleared the 3.35-meter bar to take the pole vault. Sophomore Bryce Weed's season-best 3.20-meter jump was good enough for second.

Ronner placed second in both the long jump and the triple jump. Her leaps were a foot short of what she was capable of last December. She has another two weeks to get back into top form for Heps.

"Having spoken to [Li and Ronner], they felt that they're getting back into shape and their performances would improve," Schutte said.

Saturday also marked the first meeting of the season between the league's best in the weight throw--Crimson junior Nicky Grant and Yale's Melanie Harris. Harris, the defending Heptagonal champion, made the event close with a season-best toss of 17.57 meters, but it wasn't enough to top Grant's throw of 17.71 meters. Grant has now surpassed the NCAA provisional qualifying mark of 17.70 meters three times this season.

Freshman thrower Breeanna Gibson also had an outstanding day, placing second in the shot put with a 12.87-meter throw, a foot's improvement on her season's best.

Harvard Men

Although Princeton dominated the meet overall, the Crimson had the talent to hold its own in the throws. Going into the event, both Kraay and Clever trailed a trio of their Tiger competitors on the performance lists in their respective events, but neither was intimidated by the tough competition.

Clever's throw of 16.85 meters in the 35-pound weight eclipsed his season's best by about two meters, and it was the third-best throw in the league this year. The event was won by Princeton's Joshua McCaughey, whose 20.59-meter toss broke a 21-year old school record and was the eighth-best throw in the nation this year.

"We were pretty geared up for this meet, and both John and I were able to PR," Clever said. "[McCaughery] was the national high school record holder, so he was definitely really tough to beat."

Kraay's best throw of 16.90 meters eclipsed his season's best by nearly two feet, but it was just short of the winning 16.97-meter from Princeton's Rocky Craley.

"I can't be too disappointed because I was fourth going into the meet and I beat two of the guys, but that kid beat me by just seven centimeters," Kraay said. "Our team's been trying to get a new attitude--we just haven't had that fire. It's all about competing. He hit that mark with the third throw in prelims, which meant I had three more chances, so I felt like I should have beaten him."

Kraay did, however, manage to beat out Princeton's Scott Denbo--the only person between Kraay and the Outdoor Heps title last year. Denbo threw just 16.55 meters after throwing 17.89 meters last week.

"The nature of track is, if you know someone's coming up behind you, you just don't compete as well," Kraay said. "I don't know if this was just intimidation, but I think he kind of choked, knowing that I was improving and coming up right behind him. I'm sure he won't at Heps, but I plan on throwing a lot better there too."

The level of competition at the meet made it tough for Harvard to get victories in any event. Fergusson was Harvard's top scorer, winning the triple jump at 14.65 meters and finishing just short of the league's best, Yale's Anthony Thomas, in the long jump. Freshman Tekky Andrew-Jaja placed second behind Fergusson in the long jump.

"Princeton's so good, the competition was at the level of Heps in every event," Kraay said.

Buckley, Harvard's only other winner, took the 55-meter hurdles in 7.62 seconds.

In the 55-meter dash, senior Chuck Nwokocha and sophomore Sean Meeker finished two-three in prelims behind Princeton's Cameron Atkinson. They might have done the same in the finals had Nwokocha not false-started. Meeker still placed second at 6.55 seconds.

Junior Kobie Fuller was the only other Harvard athlete to earn a second place finish. He took second in the 400, although he had been the league's best in the event when he was at full strength earlier in the season.

The track teams will resume their schedules next Saturday, with a duel meet against Bentley--the final tune-up before Heps.