Clever, Taylor Records Highlight Track Meet

School-record performances from track co-captains Brenda Taylor and Chris Clever highlighted the teams' first league tri-meet of the outdoor season against Brown and Dartmouth on Saturday

The Harvard men placed second with 65 points, just ahead of Brown's 54 but well behind Dartmouth's 84. On the women's side, Brown won with 85.5 points, Dartmouth placed second with 53.5, and Harvard placed third with 45.

Harvard Women

Without many of its best athletes competing in their strongest events, the women's team score at Saturday's tri-meet was relatively meaningless.

"This meet was more of a chance for our people to evaluate their opposition," Taylor said.

Brown is the three-time defending Outdoor Heptagonal champion, but the Crimson has hopes of upending the Bears come May. Brown and Harvard went one-two at Indoors in February.

"We'll be evenly matched," Taylor said. "I think we'll split the new events, we'll do better in some events and they'll do better in other events. It could be even closer than in indoors."

For the second week in a row, Taylor broke her own school record in the 100-meter high hurdles. She shaved seven-hundredths of a second off her record with a finish of 13.62 seconds. The performance was just two-hundredths short of the NCAA provisional qualifying time.

Despite her solid performance in the 100-meter high hurdles, her focus is on winning an NCAA title in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles.

"The 100 is just a chance for me to evaluate my technique," Taylor said. "It tells me how fast I'm running. It also scores points for the team."

Taylor's 57.02-second run in the 400 hurdles at Rice last week earned her second place on the national performance lists. Rice freshman Allison Beckford, who beat Taylor in that race, is currently first with 56.58 seconds. Taylor ran as fast as 56.64 seconds at the Olympic Trials.

"Right now I'm going for number one," Taylor said. "The fact that I hadn't seen our 400 track here-since it was covered with snow-was a setback. And I ran the last stretch on my weak leg instead of my strong leg. I think I would have PRd had I run a smarter race."

Taylor chose not to compete in the 400 hurdles on Saturday. Sophomore Amanda Shanklin won the event in 1:04.73.

The team's only other win on the day came in the triple jump. Senior Dora Gyorffy and sophomore Helena Ronner finished one-two with performances of 12.02 meters and 11.42 meters, respectively.

Harvard Men

With a 72.84-meter throw in the javelin on Saturday, Clever moved into fourth-place on the national performance lists. For the second week in a row he buried his own school record in the event. He reached 70.32 meters last week in Texas.

"I've been healthy this year, unlike the past two seasons," Clever said. "This season I'm getting into shape, and I've gotten stronger, quicker on the runway, and more flexible, and it's translated into bigger distances."

Clever will be aiming for the NCAA title this season, after placing 14th last year.

"It will be a pretty tight race [at the top]," Clever said. "But it's not beyond my means to win it. I'm definitely shooting for top five. The first guy is high 74-meters. It should be interesting when June rolls around."

Co-captain John Kraay also had a career-best day in the javelin with a 57.52-meter throw. Other than that, Saturday was a difficult day for the Crimson throwers as the wild weather took its toll.

"We had some pretty tough distances," Clever said. "Kraay had a big PR in the javelin. 57 meters would put him in contention at Heps and he hasn't done that before. Other than that it was a pretty rough day across the board."

Harvard's other event winners on the day were junior Aaron Snead in the pole vault (4.26 meters), senior Arthur Fergusson in the triple jump (13.94 meters), junior Benton Bodamer in the 400-meter hurdles (57.08 seconds), and sophomore Chris Antunes in the 800 (1:56.25).