Track and Field Registers Strong Showing at Brown Invitational

In their second meet of the outdoor season, the Harvard men’s and women’s track and field teams found themselves with a lot of second-place finishes on the track at Brown Stadium.

The meet—the Brown invitational—was the first Ivy League competition that the Crimson has seen this season. However, the field included other local Rhode Island and Boston area schools.

The women’s team had one of its most impressive meets in the point standings yet this year—including indoor season—finishing fourth with 82 points. The host Brown team dominated the meet to take home the victory with 179 points.

“It was our first outdoor meet back in home territory, and I think the team as a whole was definitely satisfied,” sophomore Laura Maludzinski said.

The men had a more disappointing finish in terms of placement, coming in ninth, but accumulated 43 points against a bigger field of teams. The meet was won by Dartmouth—who edged Brown with 139 points on the day.Both teams will be at Yale next weekend, racing against the Bulldogs on McCurdy track.

MEN

The men’s track team saw almost half its points come in one event—one which it should dominate throughout the course of the season barring injury.

In the triple jump, Harvard grabbed first, second and sixth to score a combined 21 points. The winner, sophomore Samyr Laine, flew by the rest of the competition, beating second-place sophomore Lawrence Adjah by almost a half a meter. Rounding out the scoring for the Crimson was Travis Hughes with a jump of 13.97 meters, just a hundredth of a meter out of fifth place.

The runners for Harvard had a tough time scoring on Saturday against the strong competition, with only 10 of the Crimson’s points coming in these events from two athletes.

The best effort turned in for Harvard was definitely that of junior Alasdair McLean-Foreman—running in his first meet for the Crimson in over a month because of the break between seasons and injuries—who finished second in the half mile race with a time of 1:51.42.

The same race included some other highlights for Harvard—with junior Art Baum and sophomore Timothy Galebach finishing 14th and 15th, respectively.

Junior Mike Schlund registered the other two points in the 200m race with a time of 22.99, which marks one of the few times this season that Harvard has been able to field athletes that score in this event.

Other highlights included freshman Jonathan Paul’s continued improvement, breaking the 4:00 mark in the 1500m and besting his time from the season’s first meet down at Rice by over two seconds.

The Crimson’s other few points came from the throwing events, from junior Kristoffer Hinson and sophomore Chris Ware—fifth and seventh, respectively—in the shot put and sophomore James Rhodes in the hammer throw. Rhodes followed up his third place finish in the event down in Texas by throwing three meters further to grab third for a second straight meet.

WOMEN

On the track, Harvard complimented its usual field event strength by scoring a number of its points with top four finishers in a wide range of events.

Sophomore Stevie de Groff—competing in her first meet this season—grabbed fourth in the 100m dash with a time of 13.04. To complete her day, de Groff ran in the 200m sprint as well and came within four-tenths of a second of scoring for the Crimson.

Along with freshman Allyson Pritchett’s ninth place result in the quarter mile race and Harvard’s first 4x100m relay team this year, the small sprinting team looked like it has developed a core strength that will be crucial for Harvard to field a complete all around team at Heptagonals.

“It was nice to have some people back who previously had injuries, and so our strong showing yesterday is definitely a sign that we are on the road to a big improvement from our indoor Heptagonals finish,” Maludzinski said.

In the longer races, the Crimson could not quite crack the top spot and came away with no individual victories, but a plethora of points for its team score.

In the 1500m—one of Harvard’s strengths throughout the indoor season—Maludzinski and senior Bev Whelan finished back-to-back in second and third, respectively. The two long distance runners accumulated 14 of the Crimson’s points in the one race.

“I don’t usually lead races from the gun, but I did yesterday and surprised myself with the pace I was able to maintain, even with a strong wind on the home stretch,” Maludzinski said. “Even though I was passed at the very end, I’m not really that upset about it, because I know that the effort I put out is an indication that I can go a lot faster in conditions with less wind and when I’m not leading.”

In the will-testing steeplechase, junior Rosalinda Casteneda battled for almost 12 minutes with Kate Markopoulos of UMass, but ultimately fell by less than half a second to the Boston rival. Casteneda finished second in the race with a time of 11:13.51.

The overall strength in the middle and long distance races will be what Harvard looks to build upon as the season continues.

“I don’t want to count my chickens before they’re hatched, but I think that our women’s 4x800 relay team will be ready to do some major damage by the time that Heptagonals roll around,” Maludzinski said.

Harvard’s usual presence in the top eight in almost every field event held true on Saturday, when the Crimson scored in every single one of those events.

Once again, co-captain BreeAnna Gibson highlighted the entire meet for Harvard by registering a third-place finish in the shot put, fifth place in the discus and eighth in the hammer throw—all despite injuring her big toe last weekend.

Senior Johanna Doyle also excelled on Saturday, winning the hammer throw event by seven meters.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.