W. Track Improves But Fails To Defend Heps Title

At the Indoor Heptagonal Championships this weekend, the Harvard women's track team racked up 110 points--one more than its first-place finish last year--but this year's performance still wasn't enough to keep Brown from taking its second indoor championship in three years. The Bears scored 120 points to edge out Harvard by 10--the equivalent of one first-place finish.

"The competition is so amazing now," Harvard co-captain Brenda Taylor said. "It's strong in every single event. In past years we would have won by 50 points with this performance. It just happens that both of us [Harvard and Brown] have more people than we did last year."

Just like last year, Taylor won three events--the 60-meter hurdles (7.64 seconds), the 60-meter dash (8.44 seconds) and the 200-meter dash (24.29 seconds)--and also ran the second leg of the first-place mile relay. It was enough to earn her the meet's Outstanding Performer honors for the first time of her career.

"It's nice to receive something, but the true spirit of it comes when you know you're scoring points for your team," Taylor said. "And that continued to be the most significant part of my day today."

Taylor buried her closest competition in her events--twin sister Lindsay Taylor of Brown in the hurdles and Skye Jay or Cornell in the sprints. None of her races were even close. Her time in the 200-meter dash time was the second-fastest ever at Indoor Heps.

Taylor also ran side-by-side with her sister on the second leg of the mile relay. The race was close until the final leg, when Harvard co-captain Marna Schutte--the three-time defending Heps champion in the 400--opened up a comfortable lead.

The mile relay team of sophomore Kendra Baron, Taylor, sophomore Amanda Shanklin--who also placed sixth in the hurdles--and Schutte won in 3:47.60. Harvard has now won the event three consecutive years.

Schutte won the 400 convincingly and placed third in the 200 with season-best times of 55.48 seconds and 25.17 seconds, respectively.

The Harvard two-mile relay, ranked just eighth on the league performance lists, stepped up to finish fourth in 9:09.95--a 20-second improvement over the season best. The team was made of sophomore Ashley Furst, junior Sam Piper, sophomore Leeann Hymas and senior Mary Unsworth.

Sophomore Melissa Tanner was the only Crimson distance runner to score with a sixth-place finish in the 5000 at 17:20.97--a 20-second improvement over her personal best.

Senior high-jumper Dora Gyorffy had won the Outstanding Performer award each of the previous three seasons after breaking successive meet records in the high jump, including a NCAA Indoor record-tying 1.97 meter leap last year.

Yesterday Gyorffy could not repeat her success, although she did lead Harvard to a one-two finish in her event. She gracefully floated over the 1.80-meter bar and Crimson sophomore Kart Siilats sneaked by on her third try to clinch 18 points for Harvard.

When Siilats failed to clear at 1.83 meters, Gyorffy was free to progress upwards to record-breaking heights. But her ambition could not take her any higher than the 1.94-meter bar.

"I was mad about that, because I was jumping very well, and it was easy--too easy--so I thought I didn't really have to focus for 1.94, but I missed it three times and it was over," Gyorffy said. "I think I could do two meters, so this was upsetting."

Gyorffy won't have long to wait for another high-profile meet. She will forgo defending last year's NCAA title to compete in Lisbon in two weeks at the IAAF World Indoor Championships, which she qualified for with a 1.96-meter jump last week.

Gyorffy's absence won't necessarily cost Harvard an individual NCAA title. Siilats, the Estonian national champion ranked fourth on the national performance lists, is among the favorites to win the event.

"[Siilats] got overconfident at 1.80, and I got overconfident at 1.90, so we kind of did the same thing," Gyorffy said. "But she's going on to nationals, and she'll be fine there."

In the triple jump, Gyorffy placed first, sophomore Helena Ronner held down second and senior Kathryn Ousley placed sixth to bring Harvard an improbable 19 points in the event.

Ronner also finished fifth in the long jump.

The triple jump finish looked possible on paper, although Ronner was out of action for much of the season and Gyorffy never practices the triple jump and only competes at Heps.

Gyorffy won with a 12.79-meter leap on her last jump after a slow start.

"For eight months I hadn't been doing it, so I needed some jumps to get into it," Gyorffy said. "I'm very excited to score points for the team. We did our best."

In the weight throw, Crimson junior Nicky Grant--who had previously qualified provisionally for NCAAs with a league-best throw of 17.76--had hopes of winning her first Heps title, but Yale's Melanie Harris unleashed a new meet record toss of 18.12 meters on her second attempt.

Despite five more attempts, Grant was unable to top her first throw of 16.77 meters, leaving her with just a third-place finish.

"I had seen [Harris] throw like that before in previous meets so it wasn't a huge surprise," Grant said. "But I expected more out of myself personally, since I had been practicing very well. But you have good days and you have bad days."

Freshman Breeanna Gibson managed to earn Harvard a point in the shot put with a season-best 13.14-meter throw good for sixth place. Freshman Andrea Li also earned a sixth-place finish with a season-best performance of 3.40 meters in the pole vault.

"Everyone really performed well," Grant said. "The freshmen really stepped up. We're very proud of them for that. We just needed a few more points. That's all it really came down to."

Having come up short this time against Brown, Harvard will now shift its focus towards a victory in the Outdoor Heps. The Crimson has not won an Outdoor title since 1990.

"Afterwards I just told the team, this is definitely not the end, this is the beginning," Taylor said. "We have our work cut out for us in the spring. To me that is the most significant thing. We are so motivated right now."