W. Track Year Capped By Dismal Heps Finish

Even now, it's a little painful to think about.

Harvard's women's track team went into this spring season intent on going where no Crimson team had gone before. It was coming off of a second-place finish to Brown at the indoor Heptagonals and was looking to depose the three-time league champs at the outdoor version of the meet.

"We came into the spring with a ton of confidence," senior Alexia Cruz says. "No one had beaten Brown in a long time, but we though we could do it. We were that confident."

The team proved that it had good reason for confidence in the first meet of the outdoor season, a traingular with Darmouth and Brown. In what would turn out to be the best meet of the last few season, as well as one of the league's most stunning upsets, the team scored 68 points to knock off both Brown, 65, and Dartmouth, 46.

"We were really happy with it," freshman Karen Goetze said after the meet." It wasn't supposed to be all that big of a meet, but we did really well. It's encouraging going into the rest of the season."

While the win was undeniably a big moment, the team still had its eyes set on the Heptagonals. Track is somewhat like swimming in that personal-best performances often come at the end of the year. The opening-season win against Brown confirmed the team's promise, but to prove that it was better than the Bears, it needed a Heptagonals win.

Two weeks after the big upset, the team participated in its last meet prior to Heptagonals, a dual meet with Yale. Going into the meet, the team hadn't expected Yale to be much competition, and they weren't surprised--they trounched the Bulldogs, 100-44 to set the stage for the rematch with Brown.

But from there on, things started to go bad. Cruz, the captain and star jumper, went down with pulled ligaments in her ankle. Then, trying to compensate for a stress fracture in one leg, sophomore Amanda Williams pulled a ligament. And then, the team heard word that standout freshman distance runner Karen Goetze would be unable to perform in the meet, the victim of a stress fracture.

For most top caliber teams, such as Brown, three injuries--even to top people--wouldn't have been enough to seriously alter its season-long hopes. But for the small-but talented Crimson, the injuries were devastating.

The team marched into the Heptagonals at Columbia and got trounced, finishing a distant ninth behind first-place Brown and five other teams that the Crimson had beaten in the winter.

"It was really disappointing," Cruz says. "You go to into the last meet of teh season expecting to do better than you have all season. A number of younger people put in good performances, but with all our injuries, there was no way for us to finish up like we had wanted to. It was a sad finish."

WOMEN'S TRACK

Record: I: 3-1; 0: 3-0

Ivy League: I: 2-0; 0; 3-0

Key Players: Kristina Lynch, Alexia Cruz, Karen Goetz

Seniors: Alexia Cruz, Megan Fritschel, Alais Griffin, Kristina Lynch