Track Loses, But Shows Progress

Before the Harvard track team’s meet against Yale this weekend, Crimson co-captain Andrew Gelardi stood in front of his team, holding stat sheets from previous weekends, and announced Harvard would lose by 60 points if everyone posted times similar to their previous performances. The statement led senior James Albertine to take one of the stat sheets and rip it apart, and the next day his team began to rewrite it.

Though the final result for the dual meet was 83-51 in favor of Yale, for the Crimson, the result was reflective of their recent progress.

“We learned a lot about ourselves at Gordon Saturday,” said junior Tekky Andrew-Jaja. “Half of our team matched or exceeded personal records, and this shows us that we can perform well in big-meet situations.”

On the men’s side, this “team” included a number of new runners and others coming off of injuries who provided a boost—including the track debut of the starting tailback for the Harvard football team, freshman Clifton Dawson.

On the women’s side, it was a similar story as the Crimson placed third, with a final score in favor of Princeton, which edged the Bulldogs and Harvard, 60-59-40.

Although, like the men’s team, they have not won a dual meet yet this season, the women’s team has posted a number of strong individual performances and steadily improving results against difficult Ivy League competition.

MEN

Fueled by a strong need for numbers in the sprinting events, Harvard convinced Dawson to come out for track and earn the Crimson some points, as he did on Saturday with a second-place finish in the 60m dash.

In the past, football players have used the track seasons as opportunities to do speed training.

The number—as well as quality—of Harvard’s sprinters was historically high at these times.

In recent years, recruiting has not been able to fill the void left by the diminishing number of these athletes.

Whether or not Dawson’s appearance will revive this trend remains to be seen, but his time this past weekend puts him in a position to earn points for the Crimson at Heptagonals as well.

“Again, it became a question of [our opponent’s] quantity versus our quality, and that’s really been the big attitude shift this year,” co-captain Onyechi Ezekwueche said.

This attitude has become prevalent on the team. Many of the athletes feel that its inferiority in numbers makes the dual season rough on Harvard, but that some of the strong individual talent can lead to success at the Heptagonals.

With their times on Saturday, a number of Crimson runners—as well as jumpers and throwers—placed themselves in the top-10 of the Ivy Leagues.

Junior Alasdair McLean-Foreman earned first place in the mile (4:08.2) and then came through in second in the 1000m as well. The two finishes solidify his top-five standing in each race in the league.

Additional strong running performances and personal records were turned in by junior Devon Lyons-Quirk and freshmen Conor Wilson.

Lyons-Quirk ran a personal record in the 3000m for the second straight meet, having lowered his time in the race by 19 seconds in the last two weeks, vaulting himself into the competition to score in this event at Heptagonals.

On the field side of things, sophomore Chris Ware and junior Kris Henson—who finished first and second, respectively, with throws over 15.6 meters in the shot put—have been dominant.

Based on conference competition, they can make a claim to being the second- and third-best throwers in the Ivy League right now.

Additionally, led by Andrew-Jaja in the high jump and Ezekwueche in the long jump, Harvard reined in two of the podium spots in the former and all three in the latter.

“A realistic goal for [Harvard] would be to come in and try to grab 4th or 5th place given the personnel we have,” Ezekwueche said. “That would send a statement to the league.”

Still, keeping this meet in perspective, a number of the athletes noted that despite this optimistic outlook on Saturday’s events, the fact remains that they lost to Yale.

In two weeks, maybe there will be another set of sheets presented by Gelardi, this time to inspire the team to beat the Bulldogs when it matters most.

WOMEN

Like the men, the Harvard women also outperformed expectations—but still lost to Princeton and Yale—leaving the team looking ahead to Heptagonals.

“People have counted us out this year,” Gibson said. “And I think this last meet shows we are still a force in the league.”

Once again, the Crimson’s mainstays on the individual leader board pulled through for the women, but it was not quite enough to fly by either Yale or Princeton, who battled tightly for the victory.

Freshman Chelsae Smith notched four top three performances on the day in the 60m, 200m and 60m hurdles, as well as the triple jump.

But she seems to have met her rival for the next three years in Yale sophomore Joslyn Woodward, who edged Smith in the two sprinting events by just over half a second combined.

Woodward also took home first place in the triple jump later in the day.

In two weeks, the runners will face off again, this time looking for the conference title of fastest woman.

“I hope and expect to PR in all of my events in Heptagonals, mainly because I’ll have more time between events to focus and thoroughly get ready for each of my races,” Smith said.

In another field event, the shot put, Harvard once again swept the top three places, despite an injury continuing to keep junior Johanna Doyle out of competition and a slightly out-of-rhythm Gibson—who has not practiced this past week due to illness.

The last two years, the Crimson has been the top of the Ivy League when it comes to the throwing events, winning the shot put the last two years.

But Gibson, Doyle and junior Sandra Venghaus do not have a lock on the top three spots at Heptagonals. Gibson’s winning throw last year was 14.18 meters, and the top two Harvard athletes were just under a meter below that on Saturday.

With two weeks to prepare—and hopefully a full-strength contingent in these events—the Crimson still has a shot of bringing home a couple of top-five places.

In the long-distance events this weekend, Harvard struggled the most, having trouble breaking the top five.

Senior Beverly Whelan and sophomore Laura Maludzinski turned in the best performances of this group with a double of the 800m and mile race. Whelan came within just over a second of winning the mile, placing fourth in the race behind three of Princeton’s runners.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.