Clever Leads M. Track at Heptagonals

Despite outstanding efforts from co-captains John Kraay and Chris Clever, the Crimson placed eighth at Outdoor Heps this weekend for the second consecutive season.

The Crimson scored 45 points to finish behind Dartmouth and Brown, who tallied scores of 49 and 48, respectively. At the top of the standings, Penn ended Princeton's three-year reign as meet champions, scoring 136 points to the Tigers' 117.

Clever, as expected, was the highlight of the meet for the Crimson on Saturday. He added another foot to his personal best performance from the Penn Relays last week with a throw of 74.06 meters that earned him his third consecutive meet title.

Clever's throw buried the 13-year old Heptagonal meet record of 70.92 meters. Had Princeton's Tora Harris not delivered the second-best performance in the nation in the high jump at 2.27 meters the next day, Clever might well have been the meet's most outstanding performer.

Clever is currently ranked fourth in the country and will get his chance at an NCAA title in two weeks.

Just as in previous seasons, Kraay found himself battling for second place in the shot put, as Princeton's Scott Denbo won the event comfortably for the fourth year in a row. Kraay took second place, for the second year in a row, with a strong 16.89-meter effort.

Kraay also placed third in the discus with a throw of 46.34. He could have won the event had he managed to duplicate his throw of 49.10 meters from the previous week. Sophomore Ian Shelswell placed just 15th in the event for the Crimson-a tough ending to what had been an excellent season for him.

The closest any other Crimson athlete came to winning an individual event was junior Kobie Fuller, who took second in the 400-meter dash with a time of 48.17 seconds in the final. For the second time in three weeks, he came up short of Yale's Jason Rife, who won in 47.75 seconds.

Freshman Aladair McLean-Foreman, the Crimson's lone champion on the track in Indoor Heps, came through with a third-place effort at Outdoors.

The 4x100 relay team gave the Crimson its only other points on the track outside of Fuller and McLean-Foreman's individual efforts. The team of senior Chuck Nwokocha, sophomore Sean Meeker, sophomore Paul McDonald and Fuller placed fifth in 42.28 seconds.

Senior Arthur Fergusson closed out his Heptagonal career, scoring points in both the long jump and the triple jump for the third season in a row at Outdoor Heps. Fergusson, despite having been out of competition for most of the season, finished fourth in the long jump at 7.14 meters and sixth and the triple jump at 14.50 meters.