Track Finishes Behind Princeton, Yale at H-Y-P Meet

In the classic Harvard-Yale-Princeton tri-meet this weekend, the Crimson track and field teams were outdone by the larger rosters of their opponents, who stacked the events with enough representatives to ensure a substantial advantage in total points.

Despite posting a number of individual wins and even a few sweeps Saturday in New Haven, the Harvard men’s 35 points could not upset either the Tigers or the Bulldogs, who finished with 80 and 55 points, respectively.

On the women’s side, the Crimson suffered from the loss of a couple of key pieces to its puzzle and only managed 19 points, while Yale earned 65 and Princeton had 75.

Harvard’s points, however, included a number of personal record performances as well as impressive shows by an array of talented freshmen.

The next meet for the entire team is the climax of the season—the Heptagonal championships in which Harvard will race for the Ivy League crown.

Although losses in dual meets to league competitors does not bode well for the Crimson, a number of runners are in prime position to take home the victory in their events.

The meet will be held here at the Gordon Track and Field Center on Feb. 26th.

MEN

Unlike the women, the Harvard men could not find their rhythm in the sprinting events.

Jonathan Wofsy registered the Crimson’s only points in an event that was shorter than 1000 meters. He placed third in the 500-meter dash with a time of 1:05.1.

A strong showing in the field events led the Crimson to the majority of its points on the day by sweeping the top two spots in the triple jump, high jump, and shot put.

In the jumping events, juniors Samyr Laine and Lawrence Adjah went one-two with scores of 15.45 and 14.95 meters, respectively.

Senior Tekky Andrew-Jaja placed first in the high jump again versus Ivy League competition by clearing 2.09 meters. The result—a personal record—now leaves him by himself with the second-best mark in the Ivy Leagues this season.

He was followed in second place by teammate and junior Clifford Emmanuel, whose mark of 2.06 meters was still .05 above that of the nearest competitor. Emmanuel’s jump matched his personal record and marked his first competition in almost eight months as he spent the past semester in China.

“To be honest, I’m more worried about what Cliff can do at [Heptagonals] than what Ray Bobrownicki of Brown or David Pell of Cornell, jumpers whose personal bests and level of performance I can gauge,” Andrew-Jaja joked after Emmanuel’s impressive leap this weekend.

In the throwing events, co-captain Kristoffer Hinson grabbed the five points and the victory with a throw of 16.13 meters. Christopher Ware finished the one-two sweep with a toss of 16.02 meters.

In the weight throw, James Rhodes could not quite find the little extra to beat Matthew McNamara of Princeton—coming up just short by .02 meters with his throw of 15.48.

“There is only so much we can talk about of how well a select few of athletes, including our captains and our jumpers, continue to score well and carry the team in spite of our lack of depth,” Andrew-Jaja said. “We should be very aware by now that we aren’t a big team, and that each and every one of us is going to have to step it up if we do not want to be embarrassed at [Heptagonals].”

McLean-Foreman managed to pull out the 1,000-meter win, in dramatic fashion by barely edging David Nightingale of Princeton by .16 seconds to finish with a time of 2:29.25.

WOMEN

It was a field day for the sprints on Saturday, as 12 of Harvard’s 19 points came in events under 800 meters.

Freshman sensation Dimma Kalu continued to do well against Ivy competition—this time finishing fourth in the 60- meter dash and following it up with third in the 200-meter dash.

Other short distance scorers for Harvard included Julia Rosier, who took third in the 400-meter race with a time of 58.54.

The Crimson also grabbed points in the 60-meter hurdles on the effort put in by Eleanor Thompson—first with a time of 9.03—and junior Mary Serdakowski—who came in third.

Harvard’s other points came in the field events, where sophomore Sandra Stankovic took third in high jump by clearing 1.55 meters. In the throwing events, freshman Maureen Boyle took third in the weight throw while freshman Ellenor Brown took fourth in the shot put.

Harvard’s best finishers in the longer distance events were freshmen Sarah Bourne and Eliza Gardiner, who both had personal records in the 3000 meters to finish in fifth at 10:11.04 and eighth at 10:12.39, respectively.

“The two of them were able to work together really effectively, and pushed each other to run really fast times,” junior Laura Maludzinski said.

Maludzinski, the Crimson’s best long distance runner to date this season, did not race because of pain in her shins that is being further examined.

“I have an MRI on Friday to find out if it’s a stress fracture,” Maludzinski said. “’Till then, I’m just crossing my fingers and exercising my vocal chords.”

In the relays, the Crimson came up just short in both the 4x400 and 4x800 meter races, failing to register a point in either. In the shorter of the two relays, Harvard came in just 1.39 seconds behind second-place Princeton—who took three points for its finish.

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