Harvard Track Posts Pair of Seventh-Place Finishes at Heps

The goal was to be in the top four.

Despite strong individual performances that garnered points for both squads, the Harvard men’s and women’s track and field teams could not crawl out of the bottom half. Both teams finished this past weekend’s outdoor Heptagonal Championships in Princeton, N.J. in seventh place out of the eight Ivy League schools competing to end the spring season.

“Individually there were some outstanding performances,” Crimson coach Jason Saretsky said. “We were right in the mix of it but had some things not go right. That’s how the sport is. This time we just didn’t get it.”

While both teams finished below their goal, the difference between them and their competitors was slim. By the end of the weekend, the men’s side stood only four points behind sixth place, another three points behind fifth place, and 14 points behind fourth-place Yale. Cornell grabbed the top slot with 188 points, winning for the eighth year in a row.

The Big Red’s female counterparts also stole the show for the eighth consecutive year, taking first place with 146.5 points, while the Crimson finished with 33 points—five points behind Dartmouth but ahead of the Bulldogs.

“Finishing seventh, it was a very heart-felt battle and really close,” Saretsky said. “The difference in points was really small.”

“I think [our result was] not quite what we were looking for, but there were still some great performances that were shown,” co-captain Justin Grinstead said.

Grinstead had one of those performances yesterday in the 400-meter hurdles. After finishing Saturday’s preliminaries ranked second—0.3 seconds behind University of Pennsylvania’s Tim Carey—Grinstead overcame the deficit to win Harvard’s only title of the weekend. The senior took 10 points for the Crimson with a time of 52.19 seconds.

“I was glad that I was personally able to defend my championship in my last year and be able to see more points given to more people than [during] my freshman year,” Grinstead said. “A definite improvement on the team from my freshman to my senior year, which is great.”

While Grinstead had one of the top performances of the weekend, classmate Chas Gillespie had one of the most surprising. Performing in the 10k for the first time, the bearded distance runner placed third in 30 minutes.

“We had some great performances, especially Chas in the 10k,” Saretsky said. “I’m pretty sure it was one of the top four or five times in Harvard history. It was great to score those outstanding points for the team.”

The field portion of the Crimson’s squad also arrived ready to compete. Co-captain Jack Brady, in the first event of the championships, placed third in the men’s hammer throw with a distance of 60.48 meters. Brady’s throw, a personal best, rested just 0.28 meters behind the second-place effort, despite high wind at Princeton’s Weaver Stadium.

“Brady especially, he always pulls it out for the competitions,” Grinstead said.

The freshmen men also grabbed points for the field squad as classmates Aaron Palmer and Andrew Bocskocsky placed fourth and fifth, respectively, in the men’s javelin throw to take a total of six points. Classmate Fedor Garin placed fifth in the men’s pole vault, grabbing two points for Harvard with a height of 4.80 meters.

“The field part of our program is a real strong component of the team,” Saretsky said. “It was great to see, especially our captain, seeing them end on such a high note.”

The women’s field squad was just as impressive, with similar performances by the freshmen in the throwing events.

On Saturday, junior Jessica Fronk nabbed eight points for Harvard in the women’s javelin throw by grabbing second place, while freshmen Ashtynn Baltimore and Olivia Weeks placed fourth and seventh, respectively, in the women’s long jump.

Harvard’s heptathletes also battled intensely against the competition, as sophomore Nicole Sliva pulled out a strong second day to jump from fourth place to second in the seven-event competition. Freshman Mary Hirst grabbed two points by placing fifth, while sophomore Christine Reed took sixth.

Hirst also tied with Penn sophomore Kristen Judge for third place in the high jump with a height of 1.67 meters.

“I was really impressed by the multi-event athletes,” Saretsky said. “Three girls who all scored. They did an outstanding job, in particular Nicole Sliva finishing second and All-Ivy second team.”

In the running portion of the championships, sophomore Meghan Looney placed sixth in the 800-meter run, less than 0.1 seconds behind fifth-place finisher Anna Scull from Cornell.

Baltimore doubled up with a sixth-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles, although it marked a fall from her fourth-place ranking in the preliminaries the day before.

Despite the amount of individual victories, the problem for Harvard lay in the multiple 30-minute segments throughout the weekend when the Crimson could not manage to place in the top six positions.

“[Each event] it could go either way,” Saretsky explained. “That’s how our sport is, but overall I was really proud.”

—Staff writer Alex Sopko can be reached at sopko@fas.harvard.edu.