Crimson Shines in Field at Brown

The men’s and women’s track and field teams were back in action Saturday at the Brown Invitational.

The Crimson finished respectably even while missing and resting some of its best runners, but placed behind Ivy League rivals at the meet in Providence, R.I.

“We have a really big race against Yale and [the Brown Invitational] was really more of a sharpening meet before Yale—where we really hope to have our best performances,” junior Lindsay Crouse said.

The Harvard men finished third out of 11 teams behind Brown and Yale, while the women finished fifth out of 10 behind Brown, Connecticut, Boston College, and Rhode Island.

Brown won both meets with scores of 167.5 for the men and 179 for the women’s competition.

“We go to the Brown invite to focus more on individual performances,” junior Kevin Duffy said. “It is more of a tune-up.”

MEN

In the men’s competition, the Crimson was lacking several runners and didn’t enter a number of track events. On the upside, Harvard dominated the field events, claiming three first places and scoring 70.5 of a total 83.5 points in these events.

In javelin, Duffy was edged out by Mike Carr of UMass but secured second place, lofting a throw 62.91 meters across the field.

The Crimson took first and second in shot-put thanks to captain Kristoffer Hinson’s winning toss of 16.25 meters and junior Chris Ware’s throw of 15.50 meters.

Junior Samyr Laine won the triple jump with combined 14.67 meters, and senior Travis Hughes narrowly defeated the Bears’ Deshaun Mars by .2 meters to win the long jump with a 6.76-meter leap.

Both Duffy and Hinson have qualified for the NCAA regional championships on the strength of their overall performances this season.

WOMEN

In the women’s javelin, Julia Pederson took second with a throw of 42.96 meters while freshman Lauren Walker and junior Danila Musante both ran personal bests in the 800 meters.

Freshman Dimma Kalu excelled in both the 100-meter and 200-meter races, placing first in both with times of 12.14 and 24.29, respectively.

The team was missing several of its top performers due to injury, rest, and the MCATs.

The Crimson hopes to return junior Laura Maludzinski (mile) and senior Rosalinda Castaneda (steeplechase) from injury in time for the Heptagonal Championships May 7-8.

Harvard takes on rival Yale in a dual meet this weekend in New Haven. This will be the third straight weekend the men’s team has encountered Yale—the first outdoor meeting joined the two teams to face the team of Oxford-Cambridge.

Heading into this week’s meet, the men appear to match up pretty closely with the Bulldogs.

The team looked at some predicted scores that gave Yale a slight 85-78 advantage.

After the Yale matchup, Harvard heads into the heart of its season and the Heptagonal Championships in New York.

The team hopes to bounce back from injuries and put forth some competitive performances.

“We don’t have much depth, but we have some quality performances which will go farther in a large meet,” Duffy said. “We are more of a big-meet team.”