M. Track Learns From Final Tuneups

The Harvard men’s track team attempted to work the last remaining kinks out of its system in its final tuneup meets before the Outdoor Heptagonal championships two weeks from now. On the strength of the league’s top-ranked sprinters, elite distance runners and rapidly-improving throwers, the team finds itself in good shape.

The Crimson’s top sprinters and most of its top distance runners competed at the Penn Relays, while the rest performed at the UNH Invitational on Saturday. Despite the absence of much of the team’s strongest competitors at Penn, the team still placed second at UNH with 151.5 points behind Massachusetts (202.5). UNH (146) and Maine (134) placed third and fourth, respectively.

The biggest wake-up call of the meet was felt by the 4x100 relay team of juniors Sean Meeker and Chris Lambert, senior Shawn Parker and co-captain Kobie Fuller. The quartet, who broke a school record with a run of 41.07 seconds two weeks ago at Columbia, were in position to win their IC4A heat at the Penn Relays, but a dropped baton on the anchor leg spoiled it all.

“Basically, I got the stick in a less than perfect way,” Lambert said. “It was in my hand in the wrong kind of way, and as I ran it came off my thigh. It just bounced away.”

That drop cost Harvard the race.

“We were second or third, enough for me take it home and win,” Lambert said.

Entering the meet, Penn’s 40.90 time was the best 4x100 performance in the league. Lambert says Harvard could have finished in the 40.70 range had the mishap not occurred.

Harvard did finish third with a performance of 41.61 seconds in an earlier heat.

Lambert, the star UK sprinter who has elevated the team to the next level, has experienced some bad luck this year. He was called for a questionable false start in a tri-meet against Brown and Cornell earlier this year that cost the team the meet. When he has run without incident, however, he hasn’t lost. That’s what the team hopes will happen in the coming meets.

“We will redeem ourselves at Heps and IC4As hopefully,” Fuller said.

Harvard’s strong distance runners were the other highlight of the Penn Relays. Junior Matt Seidel beat his personal record in the 5000 by 18 seconds with a performance of 14:13.57—good for tenth place. Junior Nathan Shenk-Boright also competed in the event and was fourth in his heat, but placed well in back of Seidel.

Seidel’s time would have been second-best in the league entering this week, but two Princeton runners finished ahead of him at Penn.

“[The Princeton runners] kind of put a damper on things, but I get to race them again in two weeks and I think I can take him down there,” Seidel said. “I think I’m getting in better shape now so I’ll keep on improving.”

Harvard’s distance medley team—consisting of sophomore Alasdair McLean-Foreman, juniors Chris Antunes and John Traugott, and senior Nnamdi Okike—also shined, with a third-place finish in a 19-team field at 9:51.03.

Co-captain John Cinelli, among the league’s top-ranked in the 3000 steeplechase, placed 13th in his division with a run of 9:16.94—two seconds off his season’s best from last week. That was good for 28th overall out of all college runners at Penn.

While most of Harvard’s top competitors were at Penn, the athletes whose level of improvement will ultimately determine the Crimson’s placement at Heps were at UNH.

“Right now we’re definitely focusing on the places where we need the points to actually get a victory [at Heps] rather than just coming in second or third,” Fuller said. “We’re trying to focus on where we can improve. Our sprints are definitely the strongest in the league, and our distance is strong, too. Where we’re lacking is the field events, and we’ll need to step it up in that area to actually get a victory.”

The lack of scoring in the field events was part of the Crimson’s downfall in a fourth-place finish at Indoor Heps. With even more field events in the outdoor season, they’re even more crucial.

But the team has responded to the challenge so far. Senior David Grimm has emerged as one of the league’s top throwers, and D.J. Patterson had a major improvement in the discus at UNH this weekend that has him in range to score at Heps.

Travis Hughes, a freshman jumper, won the long jump at UNH, which is a sign of encouragement.

“I think [our competitors in the field events] have improved quite a bit in the outdoor season,” Cinelli said. “Hopefully they’ll be able to pull some more points for us outdoors.”

The Crimson will find out whether that becomes a reality when Heps is contested at Navy in two weekends.

“I think Penn and Princeton look a bit stronger on paper right now, but we definitely have places where we can make up points,” Cinelli said. “We don’t have as good a chance as Penn or Princeton, but we definitely have a shot at winning it.”