Taylor, Gyorffy's Nation-Best Feats Lead W. Track to Victory

Whenever a championship was on the line for the Harvard women's track team, co-captain Brenda Taylor did everything she could to boost the Crimson's chances of victory.

In a typical Heptagonal meet, Taylor was capable of running three individual events, as well as a relay or two, and winning them all. Fittingly, she was named the Outstanding Performer for both the Indoor and Outdoor Heptagonal meets this past season.

But despite Taylor's heroics, the Crimson still came up just short of perennial Ivy power Brown at the Indoor and Outdoor Heps this season, falling 120-110 in the winter and 132-121 in the spring.

"Brown's a clutch team and they perform well under pressure," said Taylor, whose twin sister Lindsay is the co-captain of the Brown team. "But do I continue to think we had a stronger team? Yes."

The defeats at the hands of Brown were hardly representative of the greatness of this year's Harvard track team.

"The competition is so amazing now," 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."

The Crimson's strength lied principally in perhaps the greatest senior class in school history, led by co-captains Taylor and Marna Schutte and Olympic high jumper Dora Gyorffy.

Schutte won her fourth consecutive Outdoor Heptagonal title in the 400-meter dash, a feat matched by none other than two-time Olympian Meredith Rainey-Valmon `90.

Taylor rewrote the school record book during her time at Harvard, setting new marks in the 60-meter dash, 60-meter high hurdles, 100-meter high hurdles, 400-meter intermediate hurdles and the 100-meter dash. She broke Rainey-Valmon's school record in the latter event at 2000 Outdoor Heps.

Taylor was an Olympic Trial semifinalist last summer in her premier event-the 400-meter intermediate hurdles.

When she began her outdoor season this spring, she took her performance to a new level, winning the Penn Relays with a nation-best time of 56.11 seconds.

Taylor won her third consecutive ECAC title in the 400 hurdles on May 19. She was in Oregon this past weekend seeking her first NCAA title.

Taylor will not be easily replaced next season. Someday, promising sophomores Amanda Shanklin and Ashley Furst-who both scored at Heps this year-might combine to score a significant fraction of the Taylor's typical point total.

While Taylor was preparing for the upcoming season in Cambridge, Gyorffy was in Sydney representing Hungary in the 2000 Olympics. Although Gyorffy's performance of 1.89 meters at Sydney was far from her best, she soared to fifth in the world at the 2000 Indoor World Championships at Lisbon in March.

Because the Lisbon trip conflicted with the NCAA Indoors, Gyorffy was unable to defend her title, leaving the door open for someone else to win. That winner happened to be Harvard sophomore Kart Siilats, an Estonian transfer student. Siilats won the title in dramatic fashion, clearing the winning height of 1.86 meters while facing elimination.

By the end of the Outdoor season, Siilats had faded out of the NCAA picture, but Gyorffy was blowing the nation away. Her outdoor personal-best leap of 1.96 meters was the second-best jump in the world at the time. At NCAA Outdoors last Sunday, she was looking to achieve a longtime goal of clearing two meters.

Although she is better known for her high jump proficiency, Gyorffy also finished ranked among the nation's top 20 in the triple jump during the spring. Along with sophomore Helena Ronner-who placed fifth at Outdoor ECACs in May-the Crimson had the best triple jump contingent in the Ivies.

Among the Crimson underclassmen, junior Nicky Grant made the greatest breakthroughs this season, soaring to the top of the league in the weight throw during the indoor season and the hammer during the spring. A school-record, second-place 18.20-meter performance at Indoor ECACs highlighted her season.

Grant led a strong contingent of throwers, which included several promising freshmen-namely Breeanna Gibson, Johanna Doyle, and Alexandra Petrone-who all scored at Heps.

In the longer distances, the Crimson did not fare nearly as well. The cross-country team-captained by Senta Burton-placed eighth out of nine teams at Heps, led by junior Leann Hymas. During the indoor and outdoor seasons, sophomore Melissa Tanner was the only cross-country runner to score at Heps.

Harvard will be hard-pressed to finish at the top of the Heptagonal tally next season with record-breaking athletes like Schutte, Taylor and Gyorffy departing at the end of the season. The achievements of these 2001 Crimson seniors will be the benchmark of Harvard teams for years to come.