Track Trio Excels at IC4As, ECACs

Senior NCAA title hopefuls Chris Clever, Brenda Taylor and Dora Gyorffy dominated their respective events last weekend at the 125th IC4A and 18th ECAC Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships hosted by Princeton’s Weaver Stadium. It was the trio’s final meet before the NCAA Outdoor Track Championships at Hayward Field in Oregon next week.

Taylor, the co-captain of the women’s track team, broke her own Weaver Stadium record by well over two seconds with a 56.33-second run in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles on Saturday.

And that was only in the preliminaries.

“My goal was to break the [ECAC] meet record of 55.94,” Taylor said. “Originally, I knew I would be tired no matter what on the second day, so I wanted to break that barrier on the first day.”

Taylor made a second run at the meet record on Sunday, but unfavorable weather conditions limited her time to 56.53 seconds, which was still the third-best of her career.

“For whatever reason, I didn’t quite break the record on the first day, so I tried to do it again the second day,” Taylor said. “But it was cold and windy then—just nasty track conditions.”

Taylor’s closest competitors on the weekend failed to break even 59 seconds, so her third consecutive ECAC title was never in doubt.

Now her focus will turn to winning her first NCAA title. Her competition will begin with the semifinals on May 30 and conclude with the finals on June 1.

Up until last weekend, Taylor had the best time in the nation in the 400 hurdles, thanks to her performance of 56.11 seconds at the Penn Relays on April 26. But Texas’ Angel Patterson edged out Taylor’s personal-best time with a 56.09-second run at the Big 12 Championships on Saturday.

Taylor beat Patterson head-to-head this season in a close race at the Penn Relays. If the performance list is any indication, their rematch at NCAAs will be even closer.

“I have to be ready—it’s really close between several girls right now,” Taylor said. “I think it’ll be a straight line at the finish, and whoever leans hardest is going to win.”

Gyorffy, like Taylor, was effectively competing against herself last weekend. Her peak height of 1.89 meters in the high jump on Sunday was well short of her personal-best 1.96 meter-jump from May 12 that placed her second on the world season performance list, but it was still better than any other collegiate jumper in the nation this year.

Tayyiba Haneef of Long Beach State, who jumped 1.88 meters on Friday, is now Gyorrfy’s closest competition at NCAAs on June 2. Gyorffy’s goal there is to clear two meters, which would be the best jump in the world this year if she can pull it off.

Unlike Gyorffy and Taylor, Clever—co-captain of the men’s team—was not the heavy favorite to win his event. He was competing against Virginia’s Brian Kollar, the nation’s fourth-best in the javelin at 74.22 meters, just a notch ahead of Clever, who was ranked fifth based on his meet-record throw of 74.06 meters at the Outdoor Heptagonal Championships.

In the second flight of the 40-competitor field, Clever set the standard for the meet on his second throw of the day with a distance of 70.68 meters. That would stand as the winning throw, as Kollar could come no closer than 68.92 meters.

“It was good to beat [Kollar] since he was ahead of me in the national rankings, even though it was pretty far from my best distance,” said Clever, who is now IC4A javelin champion for the first time in his career.

Clever expects to be at his best when he competes at NCAAs on the evening of May 30.

“I just felt sluggish [last Saturday],” Clever said. “It was tough week with exams and papers. But now I’m done with everything, so I can focus.”

John Stiegeler of Oregon still has the best javelin performance in the nation this year at 74.92 meters. Clever believes that a throw of about 75 or 76 meters will be enough to win at NCAAs.

“I think I’m capable, and there are about five or six guys with a legitimate shot,” Clever said. “I’m pretty confident going in.”

Outside of the three Crimson champions, men’s co-captain John Kraay and sophomore Helena Ronner each earned top-eight finishes that earned points for their respective teams. In the final men’s standings, Harvard placed 25th with 11 points. The Crimson women finished 11th with 24 points, which happened to be just one point ahead of Yale’s final score of 23.

Ronner took fifth place in the triple jump on Sunday with a season-best leap of 12.80 meters, which met the NCAA provisional qualifying mark dead-on. That jump places her 34th on the national performance list in her event.

Kraay closed out his Harvard career on Sunday with an eighth-place finish in the shot put at 16.32 meters. He also competed in the discus on Satuday, but placed well back of the leaders with a top throw of 41.88 meters.

Both Crimson freshmen at the competition last weekend performed a notch below their season bests on Sunday but still earned top-15 finishes in their respective events. Alasdair McLean-Foreman, the Indoor Heps champion in the men’s 800-meter run, placed 13th in the same event on Saturday with a time of 1:50.54. Alexandra Petrone finished 14th in the women’s javelin with a throw of 38.40 meters on Sunday.