Grant Buries School Weight Throw Record at ECAC's

Last week at Heps, junior Nicky Grant finished a disappointing third in the 20-pound weight throw.

"You have good days and you have bad days," Grant said after the meet.

Yesterday, Grant had the best day of her career.

At the ECAC championships, she unleashed a throw of 18.20 meters that buried her own personal-best, school-record throw of 17.76 by nearly half a meter. It was just short of the Heptagonal-record throw of 18.21 meters by Yale's Melanie Harris last week.

Grant's throw was good enough for 31st on the national performance lists and second place against the ECAC competition. She was three centimeters short of the first-place throw. Harris, meanwhile, finished just seventh at 17.04 meters.

Against the tough ECAC competition, co-captain Brenda Taylor and sophomore Helena Ronner were the only other Crimson athletes to place.

Taylor--who won two sprints and the hurdles at Heps last week--finished fourth in the 400-meter dash with a time of 54.99 seconds. Taylor's time of 54.64 seconds from February had placed her 30th on the national performance lists. Taylor will be positioned much higher in the national rankings this spring in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles--her premier event in which she was an Olympic Trial semifinalist this summer.

Co-captain Marna Schutte--the Heptagonal champion in the 400--finished in 56.03 and fell just short of qualifying for the event's final.

Ronner finished sixth in the triple jump with a leap of 12.43 meters. She was second in the event at Heps last week.

The Harvard women's track team is now ranked 11th in the nation, according to the latest national power rankings.

The indoor track season is not quite finished for the Crimson women. Senior high jumper Dora Gyorffy will pass on her NCAA title defense to compete at the IAAF World Indoor Championships next weekend in Lisbon. Sophomore Kart Siilats, ranked fifth in the nation in the high jump, will be attempting to win her first NCAA title at the championships the same weekend.

Harvard Men

The Crimson men failed to score any points at IC4As following their impressive fourth-place showing at Heps last week.

Co-captain John Kraay, who placed second at Heps last week with a personal best 17.01-meter throw, was unable to pull off a repeat performance at IC4As, finishing in the back of the pack with a 15.05-meter throw. Had Kraay managed to match his throw from last week, he would have been third in the field.

Senior Ed Baker, whose 8:07:04 NCAA-qualifying time in the 3000 was unrightfully disqualified at Heps last week, ran 8:24.72 in the 3000 preliminaries on Saturday. That placed him 13th in the field, less than a second short of the top-12 finish he needed to qualify for another chance in the finals.