W. Track Places First at UNH

Horrendous weather prevented the Harvard women’s track team from achieving many of its personal goals this weekend, but the Crimson still expects a strong showing at the Heptagonal Championships in two weeks.

The squad was split between the Penn Relays and the New Hampshire Invitational this weekend, though several athletes managed to compete in both meets.

The team won at UNH with 180 points, beating out the Wildcats (167), UMass (160) and Maine (82.5) despite the bad conditions and the absence of several key athletes.

Neither meet had a strong team focus like other Ivy meets, as athletes focused on improving their seed times for Heps. If they were already on top of the league, they looked to improve their national standing.

At the Penn Relays, junior Helena Ronner was the lone Crimson athlete to take home a first-place trophy, winning the Eastern triple jump title with a performance of 12.01 meters. That result was well short of her best though, and wasn’t close to the top collegiate triple jumper at the meet. She is still the favorite at Heps, however.

Co-captain Nicky Grant and sophomore Johanna Doyle, who are ranked one-two in the Ivies in the hammer throw, both finished well short of their bests of 56.88 and 55.20 this weekend in the difficult conditions both at Penn and at UNH.

“In track, you have to deal with the weather and make adjustments and we just couldn’t do it,” said Grant, whose throw of 56.88 meters last week set a school record. “The most frustrating part of the situation was the fact that we could have been right in the thick of things with our recent performances. But that’s over now and at this point we have our sights set on performing well at Heps.”

Grant had hoped that this weekend’s two events would provide another opportunity to improve on her previous week’s performance, but it was not to be. She was 28th in the nation on the latest performance list and will probably need a result in the 58-meter range to make the top 16 in the nation and earn a spot in the NCAA championships.

“I think with the way [Johanna and I] have been throwing, we are the top competitors in the league, and we expect to show our dominance at Heps, and hopefully we’ll have performances that will carry us to the next level—ECACs and hopefully nationals,” Grant said.

Grant, Doyle and Ronner lead a strong Harvard contingent in the field that the team hopes can carry it in Heps.

“We should do really well,” co-captain Carrie McGraw said. “We’re really strong in the field events. I think we’re a better team better outdoors because there are more field events and we do better in the added events like the hurdles.”

Freshman Victoria Henderson is one of three Crimson hurdlers looking to continue Harvard’s winning tradition in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles now that defending NCAA champion Brenda Taylor ’01 has moved on.

Henderson ran a season’s best time at UNH and finished one-two-three along with classmate Eleanor Thompson and junior Amanda Shanklin at that meet. It was a busy weekend for all three, as each competed at Penn, and Thompson and Shanklin finished two-three in the 100 high hurdles at UNH.

Junior Melissa Tanner was the lone Crimson athlete to compete solo on the track at Penn, finishing 16th in the 10,000 meters with a performance of 35:43.01.

Harvard, as usual, sent a 4x400 relay team to Penn that competed against Heptagonal rivals. Cornell won the meet in 3:45.38, while the Crimson took fourth with a 3:51.34 performance.

McGraw, one of the few Crimson women with a good chance to win a Heptagonal title on the track, couldn’t produce a good time in the 400 meters at UNH because of the weather conditions, but she was pleased with the result of the 4x400 team, which won despite lacking the first-string contingent it had at Penn.

The Crimson finished second at the Indoor Heptagonals in February to the surprise of its opposition, and hopes for even better results this time around.

“I think we’re all doing well and we’ve all improved from the indoor season,” McGraw said.