Hirst Breaks School Record, Wins Two Events at Heps

At last season’s Outdoor Heptagonal Championships, senior Mary Hirst etched her name in the Harvard track and field record books with the second best heptathlon performance in school history. Despite the record-breaking outing, Hirst finished in second place in the event, falling to Dartmouth’s Janae Dunchack by a narrow margin.

In February of this year, Hirst found herself in second place to Dunchack once again, this time in the pentathlon at Indoor Heps.

After back-to-back runner-up finishes, last weekend’s Outdoor Heps was the senior’s last chance at an Ancient Eight championship. And if her performances in the heptathlon and high jump are any indication, she wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

Hirst scored 5359 points to shatter the school record in the heptathlon and went on to have a personal-best clearance in the high jump. She had failed to capture an Ivy championship for four years as of Sunday morning, but on Sunday evening, she had two.

“I was nailing every event,” Hirst said. “It’s just amazing to finally have won it after all this time of wanting to win it.”

Everything seemingly fell into place for the senior, as she had personal-best marks in six of the heptathlon’s seven events over the weekend.

“Usually you’ll have some down events, some events that don’t go so well,” said Harvard assistant coach Kebba Tolbert, who works with the squad’s multi-event athletes. “It’s rare to have six of seven events be your [personal record] unless you’re on fire, which she was.”

Hirst won each of the four field components of the heptathlon: the shot put, long jump, javelin throw, and high jump. Before she stepped in the throwing ring for the shot put, her father, who made the trip to Princeton for the meet, jokingly told her to throw 13 meters. In practice leading up to the meet, she was hitting marks just over 12 meters.

Much to her surprise, Hirst hit a mark of exactly 13.00 meters on her second attempt, almost a full meter farther than Dunchack, her nearest competitor. Still, Dunchack remained close to Hirst in the standings until the javelin throw, the heptathlon’s sixth event. With a throw of 40.29 meters, Hirst earned some separation from her rival, who recorded a 23.36-meter mark.

“I was constantly wanting to get scores that were beating [Dunchack] so I could win it in the end,” Hirst said. “My coach didn’t want to tell me my score because he wanted me to run a great 800. So I just knew, ‘Well, I think I’m ahead, but I’m not sure, so I just have to run my heart out and beat her.’”

When the senior crossed the finish line with a three-second personal record in the 800, edging out Dunchack by just over a second, she knew that he had locked up the title.

“I couldn’t walk two feet without having one of my teammates come up to me and give me a hug and tell me how great I’d done,” Hirst said.

Although she had just turned in the fourth best heptathlon performance in Ivy League history and the 18th in the country this season, the senior’s day wasn’t over when she crossed the finish line in the 800 meter run.

Roughly 45 minutes later, Hirst competed in the high jump. She and Cornell’s Ailish Hanly were the only two jumpers remaining when the bar was raised to 1.78 meters. After Hanly cleared the bar on her first attempt and Hirst did not, it appeared that Hirst was destined for yet another second-place finish.

However, Hirst cleared the bar on her second attempt and went on to clear it again when it was raised to 1.80 meters, her personal-best clearance and the third best in school history. Hanly was unable to match the jump, and Hirst earned her second victory of the day.

“She’s grown a lot in the past year,” Tolbert said. “She’s matured a lot, and she knows what it takes to reach this level of performance. She’s put in the time, energy, and effort to be an elite Ivy League athlete.”

With her pair of championship performances, Hirst picked up 20 points for the Crimson women’s squad, which finished in third place behind Cornell and Columbia. She was recognized as the meet’s most outstanding field athlete.

“I’ve really worked hard this year to train hard, sleep well, eat well and to really give it my all to track, so it was just amazing for it to pay off so big.”

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