Track and Field Earns Top-Five Finish at Armory Invitational

In spite of numerous strong individual showings at Saturday’s Armory Invitational, the Harvard track and field team found itself looking up at a pair of familiar foes in the final standings.

The invitational, which was held at the Armory Track and Field Center in New York, N.Y., featured 17 teams, including Harvard’s conference rivals Princeton, Columbia, and Cornell. The Crimson men’s team finished third overall at the meet, scoring 98.5 points, while the women’s squad earned fourth place with 99 points.

Behind a strong outing by their distance runners, the Tigers captured the men’s team title. The Big Red ran away with the women’s competition, outscoring second-place Princeton by 25 points.

“I think our student-athletes performed really well.” Harvard coach Jason Saretsky said. “Given the added stress of study card week, I was pleased with how both of our squads competed.”

Harvard’s middle distance runners rose to the occasion on Saturday. Co-captain Meghan Looney won the 800m run, finishing 0.29 seconds ahead of Cornell’s Molly Giantz. Though one second slower than her personal best, the senior’s time of 2:10.02 meets the ECAC championship-qualifying standard for the women’s 800.

“[Looney] led right from the gun,” Saretsky said. “She went out there and pushed the pace. It was great to see such a gutsy performance from her.”

Sophomore middle distance runner Alaina Murphy also turned in an ECAC-qualifying race for the Crimson. Murphy took home first place in the women’s mile run, finishing in 4:53.84. Classmate Morgan Kelly ran a sub-five mile, as well. Her time, 4:58.95, was good for fifth place and four points for Harvard.

In one of the closest races of the day, senior Kailyn Kuzmuk fell to Princeton’s Abby Levene in the women’s 3000m run. Levene edged out Kuzmuk by a tenth of a second to earn the victory in 9:43.61. Kuzmuk’s time bests the ECAC qualifying standard by over 15 seconds.

On the men’s side, the Crimson’s major contributors were the squad’s throwers, jumpers, and pole vaulters.

Junior pole vaulter Nico Weiler won the team’s only individual title, clearing 16’4.75”, five inches higher than the second-place vaulter. Weiler, who holds Harvard’s all-time record in the pole vault, earned 10 points for the Crimson with his ECAC-qualifying mark.

“Nico Weiler is a special athlete,” Saretsky said. “He’s been adjusting to a new coach, and I expect even bigger things from him moving forward.”

The Crimson’s highly-touted freshman class continued to impress on Saturday. Freshman Ben Glauser nearly broke a 43-year old school record at the meet. His mark in the shot put, 59’3.5”, earned him the No. 2 spot in Harvard history in the event. But the impressive mark also only earned him the number No. 2 spot at the invitational. Another freshman, Cornell’s Stephen Mozia, beat Glauser by 5.5 inches to earn the victory.

“I’m pretty happy with how I performed,” Glauser said. “I’m in a good position to do what I want to do in about a month, when Heps and Ivy Championships come around.”

But Mozia will continue to challenge Glauser down the stretch this season.

“It’s going to be a dog fight when it comes to Heps,” Saretsky said.

In spite of his competition with Mozia, Glauser indicated that his overall goal for the season is to throw 19 meters—roughly 62.34 feet—a mark well better than the Harvard record.

“[The record] is a little over 40 years old,” Glauser said. “It’s about time that goes down.”

But his performance in the shot put wasn’t Glauser’s only contribution. He also competed in the weight throw event with sophomore Dustin Brode and junior Matthew Polega. Brode, Glauser, and Polega scored a combined 17 points for Harvard in the event, finishing in second, third, and sixth place, respectively.

Harvard will need to continue to improve down the stretch if it hopes to compete with the likes of Princeton and Cornell.

“Our training is geared toward the end of the season,” Saretsky said. “That’s when we want to be firing on all cylinders. [Princeton and Cornell] have been the perennial powers in our conference for number of years, but I’m happy with the way that we’ve been able to close the gap a bit.”

—Staff writer Dominic A. Martinez can be reached at dmartinez@college.harvard.edu.