Track and Field Heads to Heptagonal Outdoor Championships

This weekend, the Harvard track and field team will no longer be divided up and spread out at meets across the country. No longer will the team be up against the likes of LSU and Florida, nor will it be racing in front of the Penn Relays’ 50,000 spectators.

Although the powerhouse teams will be absent and the crowd more modest, this is the most important weekend of competition for the Crimson to date. Harvard will travel to Princeton’s Weaver Stadium to square off against its seven Ivy League rivals in the Outdoor Heptagonal Championships. The oft-divided squad will be united for one of the few times this season with its runners, jumpers, and throwers all in pursuit of a singular goal: to bring an Ivy title back to Cambridge.

“A lot of what we do is to get ready for this competition and beyond,” Harvard coach Jason Saretsky said. “We really gear things toward the championship part of our season, which starts this weekend.”

The Crimson women will look to replicate its somewhat-surprising championship at February’s Indoor Heps. Despite falling to Princeton just two weeks before the competition, Harvard put together a complete team effort to nab its first Ancient Eight crown in 13 years.

“[Winning Indoor Heps] has certainly given them some confidence, but I think it’s also made them hungry for more,” Saretsky said. “I think they’re really looking forward to getting after it again this weekend.”

If the Crimson hopes to knock off Cornell, Columbia, and Princeton again, it will need stellar showings from its top competitors, like freshman sprinter Autumne Franklin.

The first-year has run the top times in the Ivies in both the 100 and 400-meter hurdles this season. If she is in top form this weekend, she can rack up 20 points for the Harvard women in the two events alone, more than one-sixth of the team’s total of 117 points at Indoor Heps.

Also key to the Crimson’s success will be the performance of sophomore Erika Veidis, who is currently ranked No. 1 in the Ivy League in the 800-meter run.  Right behind the sophomore in the rankings is Princeton’s Greta Feldman, who narrowly edged Veidis for first in the event last year.

“[Feldman] is an incredible athlete,” Veidis said. “She’s coming off a really strong performance at Penn Relays…so it could come down to us two battling it out in the home stretch.”

In recent meets, Veidis and Franklin have teamed up—along with freshman Gabrielle Scott and sophomore Christi Scott—in the 4x400-meter relay. The squad set a school record two weekends ago, and their performance could have major implications for Harvard’s final place in the standings this weekend.

At Indoor Heps, the Crimson held a slight lead over the Big Red going into the 4x400, the meet’s final race. If the Harvard foursome had faltered, the Big Red would have walked away with the Ivy crown.

While the Crimson women are seeking to defend their title, the men’s squad will be looking to build upon its best finish at Heps since 1985. Propelled by the dominance of its throwers, the men’s team took third place behind Princeton and Cornell.

While being competitive with the Tigers and Big Red is an unrealistic goal for Harvard, as both teams nearly doubled its point total at Indoor Heps, the Crimson will once again rely on its throwing corps to have an edge on its other five opponents.

Senior Edward Brucker, junior Dustin Brode, and sophomores Ben Glauser and Igor Liokumovich have been strong contributors for Harvard all season. Brode, who won the shot put at Indoor Heps with a throw of 18.18 meters, will face heavy competition from Cornell sophomore Stephen Mozia, who has the top-ranked throw of the season in the Ancient Eight. Mozia’s mark is the third best all-time in the conference, and he is the only Ivy athlete to surpass 60 feet this season.

“The men’s throwers have been our rock bed for a number of years now,” Saretsky said. “It’s a very talented group, definitely one of the strongest in the Ivy League, possibly in the history of the League.”

Junior distance runners Maksim Korolev and James Leakos, who have been climbing the school record board this season, will have square off against strong competition in their events. Leakos and Korolev are ranked second in the 5k and 10k runs, respectively.

“The season’s gone really well so far, we’ve basically rewritten the record books with some of the all-time [best] performances  throughout the season,” Saretsky said. “This is arguably one of the best groups that’s come through Harvard in a long, long time. I’m excited to see how we match up against the rest of the Ivy League.”

—Staff writer Dominic A. Martinez can be reached at dmartinez@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @dominicmTHC