Track Impressive at Heps

On the strength of some stalwart performances by their veteran leaders, both the Harvard men’s and women’s indoor track teams turned in respectable performances at Cornell in the Heptagonal Championships while competing against the rest of the Ivy League and Navy this weekend.

The women exceeded all expectations, riding a dominating performance in the field events to place second with 101 points—twelve behind Cornell. For their part, the men enjoyed wins in the 60-meter dash, the 500-meter run and the 4x400-meter relay in placing fourth with 78 points—three behind Penn and Dartmouth and well behind champion Princeton’s 127.

Women

Having graduated Olympian Dora Gyorffy ’01, All-American Brenda Taylor ’01 and Marna Schutte ’01, few people were looking at the Crimson women as serious contenders.

“Most people thought that after losing the graduating class last year, we wouldn’t be competitive,” co-captain Carrie McGraw said.

Co-captain Nicky Grant, senior Kart Siilats, junior Helena Ronner, and the rest of the team had other ideas, however, helping Harvard jump out to an early lead.

“We knew if we performed extremely well, then we had a chance to make a run at Cornell for the title,” sophomore BreeAnna Gibson said.

Siilats, the reigning national champion in the high jump, cruised to victory in her signature event with a jump of 1.73 meters. Perhaps more impressively, she also entered the triple jump, an event in which she has not competed for several years, and glided 11.77 meters to take second behind teammate Ronner’s 12.46 meters.

Ronner also leapt 5.92 meters in the long jump to capture that event. Her showing was an improvement over last year’s strong performance, where she took second in the triple jump and fifth in the long jump.

The Crimson’s status in a class by itself in the field events, though, was most evident in the weight throw, where co-captain Nicky Grant led Harvard to a sweep of the top three places. Grant’s 18.69-meter toss on her second preliminary throw broke the Heptagonal record of 18.21 meters, set last year by Yale’s Melanie Harris.

Gibson and sophomore Johanna Doyle took second and third with personal bests of 16.50 meters and 15.94 meters, respectively.

In the track events, Harvard seemed to struggle slightly on the flat track, whose tighter curves forced the Crimson runners to adapt a less natural stride and made passing more difficult.

Still, McGraw posted her second-fastest time ever in the 400-meter dash, taking second in 57.37. Junior Melissa Tanner placed third in the 5,000-meter run in 17:17.92, and the 4x400-meter relay squad, composed of freshmen Victoria Henderson and Eleanor Thompson, junior Ashley Furst and McGraw recorded its best time of the season, 3:53.06, to capture second place.

Overall, the Harvard women were pleased with their showing.

“[Our performance is] a testament to the direction of this team,” Grant said. “It was considered throughout the league that this would be a rebuilding year for Harvard after losing so many superstars last year, but I could not be more happy with the way that our team performed this weekend.”

Men

While the women owed their success primarily to their performances in the field events, the Harvard men could only manage a single point there, senior D. J. Patterson’s sixth-place finish in the shot put.

On the track, though, the Crimson excelled, outscoring every team but the Tigers in the running events.

Co-captain Kobie Fuller and junior Chris Lambert led the way, with Lambert tying the school record he set in the 60-meter dash two weeks ago with a time of 6.73 seconds.

“It’s great to see someone winning an event we haven’t been strong in for a while,” sophomore Alasdair McLean-Foreman said.

Fuller, competing in the 500-meter run to allow sophomore Brandon Smith to run in the 400-meter dash, captured the event in 1:03.39 despite battling an illness and a star-studded field featuring two former Heptagonal champions. The switch also paid dividends for Smith, who, competing in his first Heptagonals—after missing last year’s competition with an injury—took third in 49.09 seconds.

In the 1,000-meter run, junior John Traugott got boxed in, but still managed to place third in 2:29.08, while classmate Matt Seidel earned second-team All-Ivy honors by placing second in the 3,000-meter run in 8:24.70.

All three of Harvard’s relays finished in the top three, led by the 4x400-meter squad comprised of senior Osahon Omoregie, Smith, Lambert and Fuller, that won in 3:16.72 despite being seeded in the slower section. The Crimson also got third-place finishes from senior Nnamdi Okike, junior Christopher Antunes, co-captain John Cinelli and Traugott in the 4x800-meter relay in 7:42.60 and Seidel, senior Shawn Parker, freshman Russell Leino and McLean-Foreman in the distance medley relay in 10:11.05.

McLean-Foreman ran courageously after spending much of the week on crutches with a sprained ankle, but he was still not satisfied with his own performance in the mile, where he placed second in 4:09.91 to earn a spot on the second-team All-Ivy squad.

McLean-Foreman will have a chance to make up for this weekend’s disappointment next week, though, when he and several other elite Harvard athletes compete in the IC4A/ECAC Championships at Boston’s Reggie Lewis Track Center on Saturday and Sunday.