Men's and Women's Track Each Finish Eighth at Heptagonals

Considering this past weekend’s results, it might be fitting to dub the second-year members of the Harvard track teams “sophomore studs.”

Two of the weekend’s few bright spots were victories from sophomores Laura Maludzinski and Samyr Laine—with classmate Lawrence Adjah registering second place right behind Laine—as the Crimson came home from Heptagonals with dual eighth-place finishes.

On the men’s side, the team built off of its one-two sophomore sweep of the triple jump to charge on the second day, but finished with 29 points.

The women’s team fared a little better, finishing the two-day meet with 32 points.

“All in all, in was a tough weekend,” senior James Albertine said. “I know everyone’s disappointed about the way both teams ended up overall, however, there were quite a few personal bests and good performances to write home about.”

The two Crimson Heptagonal champions—Maludzinski and Laine—picked up their victories in the 1,500 meter race and the triple jump, respectively.

In contrast to the sophomores who will be back to defend their crowns next year, for the seniors the meet was not only the last of the season, but the last of their careers.

“Throughout my time at Harvard I spent at least two hours a day with the team, and I will for sure miss it,” senior Sandra Venghaus said.

In the overall team competition, Cornell ran away with both championships, racking up 137 points in the women’s side of the competition and 155 in the men’s events.

WOMEN

Harvard’s most exciting performance of the entire meet came hand-in-hand with its best as well. Maludzinski showed that her bright future is already here as she won the 1,500 meter race by less than a hair’s breadth. Co-captain Beverly Whelan finished 3.5 seconds behind in sixth.

In the race that the Crimson has shown consistent strength in all year, Maludzinski (4:29.03) finished just a hundredth of a second ahead of Yale’s Ashley Campbell—who gave one last effort down the final straightaway to make the race as tight as it was.

“It was what they call a ‘kicker’s race’ and she ran it perfectly,” Whelan said. “Laura and I were boxed with 300 meters to go, and she made a gutsy move and passed the field in the third lane.”

Although Laura’s time left her under a half a second away from the time she needed to run in order to qualify for the NCAA regional meet, by winning the championship for the conference she will get an automatic bid.

The 3,000-meter race was another event in which Harvard put up some of its best efforts of the season, with senior Mairead O’Callaghan and junior Celene Menschel running their personal bests.

On the field, Harvard followed through in usual form, putting up strong performances in almost every event.

Gibson scored a big chunk of Harvard’s other points yesterday, earning fifth in the shot put and sixth in the discus with throws of 12.79 and 39.19 meters respectively.

Senior Sandra Venghaus competed over the course of the two days in the Heptathlon, eventually earning fifth place in the multifaceted event that may have been the most seriously affected by the poor weather.

“During the long jump it started raining a lot, which made the javelin really hard,” Venghaus said. “None of the heptathletes had ever really thrown off of grass, plus the rain left it very muddy. Fortunately it didn’t affect me too much.”

And only minutes after finishing the 800-meter race portion of that event, Venghaus took first in the shot put—the first time she has ever scored in the event.

Harvard’s nine points on the first day of competition came on the backs of two of its field team mainstays. In the hammer throw, senior Johanna Doyle—whose throws throughout the season had her in prime position to be right in the race for the victory—came within just three feet of the winning throw. Doyle’s toss of 54.71 meters left her just shy of Catrina Chisholm.

Outside of the throwing events, the Crimson saw a number of underclassmen score for the field team.

Freshman Allyson Pritchett’s jump of 5.37 meters was good enough for fifth place in the long jump. In the 110-meter hurdles, sophomore Mary Serdakowski placed sixth in the finals with a time of 14.83, followed by junior Eleanor Thompson in sixth.

After the day’s competition, Harvard found itself 29 points behind Princeton, which grabbed the early lead with victories in the pole vault and the 10,000-meter run. On the second day of competition, the Tigers faltered as Cornell surged ahead to victory on the backs of strong performances in almost all the field events yesterday.

Although Heptagonals marks the end of team competition, the select members of the Crimson who qualified will be back competing next weekend in the ECAC championships.

MEN

Although the first day of competition mostly consists of qualifying races, Harvard started off Heptagonals on a slow foot with one point on Saturday and finished with only 29 points.

The Crimson’s sole point on the first day came from sophomore Christopher Ware in the hammer throw. He followed up his throw of 167’09” in that event by grabbing more points yesterday.

In the shot put, Ware captured fourth a toss of 15.55 meters—just ahead of senior teammate Kristoffer Hinson’s 15.40 effort.

On the track, Harvard’s 4x100-meter relay team of junior Travis Hughes, Mike Schulund, co-captain Onyechi Ezekwueche and Laine earned the Crimson’s only points on the track for the entire meet, finishing fourth. Adding to this relay’s performance was the fact that the quartet came out of a slower heat than some of the other teams in an event that did not have a finals in which the better team from multiple heats would have faced each other.

In many events, Harvard was overwhelmed in the numbers of athletes alone—where Harvard could only put two, one, or sometimes no runner in an event in which eventual champion Cornell had between three and five of its own athletes.

A partial factor in this has been injuries that have disrupted the workout regime of a number of key runners—as evident in a big way this weekend.

“I really feel that their youth, as well as that of our team in general, gives us an excellent chance to make a run at the Heps title next year,” sophomore Tekky Andrew-Jaja said. “Personally, I know that I had not adequate enough time to prepare for the meet.”

Junior Alasdair McLean-Foreman—one of the team’s strongest runners when healthy—has struggled this season with injuries and did not start as he was registered to do in the 1,500.

“I think everyone who competed knows they gave it everything they had, we just didn’t get enough breaks our way,” Albertine said.

Freshman Sean Barrett—another of the Crimson long distance runners who struggled with injuries earlier in the year—ran a personal best of 15:22.89 in the 5,000-meter race.

In the field events, Laine and Adjah showed why Harvard’s future is bright and could see those breaks in the future.

After dominating Ivy League competition all season, the duo swept the Heptagonal championships in their field of expertise, the triple jump, with jumps of 15.33 meters—just over 50 feet—by Laine and 14.70 by Adjah.

“The 1-2 sweep felt a lot better than the win itself because Lawrence and I, I believe work harder than many people in the league and we wouldn’t have accepted anything less,” Laine said. “In fact, we had 1-2-3 in mind but Lawrence, Travis and I will be back next year for that and all three of us have IC4As to look forward to.”

As with the women, the last meet for the Harvard men will be the regional championships next weekend, in which only those who qualified will run.

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