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Lightning fast times at the Larry Ellis Invitational

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The Tigers managed to win both of their respective 4x100 relay events on Saturday 
Photo Courtesy of @PrincetonTrack/Twitter  

This weekend, the Princeton men’s and women’s track and field teams competed on home ground for the last time this season.

Despite thunderstorms on Saturday that cut multiple events short, the Tigers showcased some exciting results at Weaver Stadium as they near the Ivy League Championships.

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“We would have seen many more impressive performances on Saturday if the meet had not been canceled,” head coach Michelle Eisenreich told The Daily Princetonian. “We are really looking forward to a great opportunity to compete at UVA this weekend.”

The Tigers thrived on the field, demonstrating notable depth in men’s pole vault — notably, senior vaulter Sondre Guttormsen beat his own meet record from 2022 to score the first place, achieving a height of 5.81 meters, followed by his brother, senior vaulter Simen Guttormsen in third and first-year vaulter Nick Molloy in fourth. 

“5.81 is my best season opener ever which is very promising for the rest of the season, and I’m excited for the weeks and months leading up to the NCAA final in June,” Sondre Guttormsen told the ‘Prince.’

The Tigers also managed to top the rankings in long jump and shot put. In men’s long jump, sophomore jumper Philip Kastner took another win for the team with a distance of 6.91 meters. In shot put, first-year Casey Helm took first with a 17.55-meter shot, while first-year Joe Licata in third and sophomore Tyler Konopka in fourth. 

On the women’s side, the team saw a win from sophomore Madeleine Wood, who high-jumped 1.77 meters, and an impressive all-Tiger podium in the triple jump, where first-year Georgina Scoot, senior Tia Rozario, and first-year Alexandra Kelly dominated, placing first, second, and third, respectively. This performance followed Kelly and Rozario’s second and third places in the long jump the previous day. 

“The energy on the team is great,“ Eisenreich added. “They are confident and ready for some big marks the second half of the season.” 

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On the track, both the Princeton men and women won their respective 4x100m relay events. Standout individual performances included senior India Weir’s second-place finish in the women’s 3000m steeplechase with sophomore Lexi Allen placing fourth behind her and another second place for the team from junior Margaret Liebich in Friday’s 1500m. Senior Arianna Smith had a third-place time of 14.12 seconds in round one of the 100m hurdles on Saturday before the events had to be put to a halt in the midst of the storm. 

As for the men, in Friday’s 1500m event, the Princeton team had three athletes in the top six positions, with junior Duncan Miller placing closely third with a time of 3:41.22, just 1.8 seconds behind the winner who beat the meet record from 2015. Another strong performance in the same event on Saturday had junior Sebastian Fisher in third, after an extremely competitive race that separated him from the winner by just 0.23 seconds. Saturday’s 110m hurdles started off with a promising first round that placed three athletes in the top five positions, with first-year Gregory Foster finishing in second after posting a time of 14.23. However, the finals did not take place due to the cancellations.

After a weekend of dramatic weather and encouraging performances, both teams now look onward to the UVA Challenge meet in Charlottesville beginning Friday, April 21 as they prepare for the Ivy League Championships in just under three weeks.

Sondre Guttormsen added, “The mindset going into Ivy’s and the NCAA championships is to keep up the good work and improve week by week to hopefully break more records and win more titles.”

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Zoë Scheske is a contributor to the Sports section at the ‘Prince.’ 

Please direct any corrections requests to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.