As the indoor track season heads into the most important stretch of the year, including the Harvard-Yale-Princeton meet next weekend, in Cambridge, Mass., and the Heptagonal Championships at the end of the month in Hanover, N.H., both the men's and women's teams are managing to gain valuable meet experience by facing quality competition.
The men's and women's indoor track teams were both in action this Saturday, with the women pulling out a close victory over archrival Penn (66-61) at Jadwin Gym and the men facing top-tier competition at the Penn State-Princeton-UConn Triangular meet. The Tigers lost to the Huskies, 141-92, and fell to the Nittany Lions, 129-92, in State College, Pa.
"The team did real well for our first head-to-head meet," women's senior captain Allison Brown said. "We had the team unity that helped us in this close meet. I'm happy with the way everything went."
"I thought everyone in the meet was very excited, especially Princeton," senior captain Shawneequa Callier added. "We really wanted to win this one more than them."
Princeton took the top three spots in three events — the mile, the high jump, and the 3000 meters — and won six events overall. Sophomore Holly Huffman triumphed in the mile with a time of five minutes, 3.63 seconds, and was followed by senior Karen O'Neil (5:04.46) and sophomore Catherine Casey (5:18.91).
Callier took first place in the high jump with a mark of 1.79 meters, and junior Rebecca Desman cleared 1.74 meters for second. Junior Becky Harlow jumped 1.59 meters for third place. The 3000 was won by junior Jen Cannistra (10:19.68), with second and third going to freshman Sarah Rivlin (10:21.28) and senior Courtney Ebersole (10:31.19), respectively.
While the women managed to squeak out a win over Penn, the men were aware that they were going up against fierce competition at the Triangular. But when all was said and done, the Tigers were pleased with their performances.
"We did well overall," junior captain Scott Denbo said, "and it was a good opportunity for us against some good teams."
"We knew what we were up against in some tough competition with UConn and Penn State, and we didn't really know the other teams that well," sophomore distance runner Paul Morrison said. "But everybody had some good performances, and we're not disappointed by the loss."
Morrison went on to explain Princeton's strategy in the distance events: "UConn had a small team, so we tried to tire them out using different people in each race, and I just tried to run their legs off."
Morrison placed second in the mile at 4:07.26, but was overshadowed by senior captain John Mack, who nabbed first place with a meet record of 48.17 in the 400. Denbo took second in the shot put with a throw of 56 feet, 11 1/4 inches. Junior Jonathan Jessup managed second place in the pole vault at 15' 9". Two freshmen, Jonathan Bell and Adrian Mullings, were the runners-up in the 3000 and 60-meter hurdles, with times of 8:24.14 and 8.30, respectively.
Looking ahead to next weekend's clash at Harvard, the men like their chances against both the Crimson and the Elis.
"This weekend was definitely a good sign for the H-Y-Ps," Denbo said.
"We want to crush them," Morrison emphatically said. "That's the goal."
The women expected that the competition might be harder, but were still confident following the victory.
"What we did this weekend gives us a lot of promise going into H-Y-Ps," Brown said, "and we are ready to go in there and try our best. The competition will be tougher with Harvard."
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