Women's track finishes third overall

The women's track team charged to a third place finish this weekend at the outdoor Heptagonal Championships, coasting in on strong efforts from its senior leadership.

The Heptagonal Championships, commonly referred to as "Heps," represents the season championship-deciding battle between the eight Ivy League teams plus Navy. This year's events were held at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.

Finishing with 81 points, Princeton was surpassed only by Brown, who had 109 points, and a tough Cornell program, which crushed the competition with a massive 187-point total. Harvard finished in fourth with 77 points, Columbia had 56, Dartmouth ended up in sixth with 50, Yale had 77, and Navy and Penn rounded out the rankings with totals of 51 and 26, respectively.

Contributing many of the Tigers' 81 points were senior co-captains Lauren Simmons and Catherine Casey. Simmons and Casey have led their team all season both on and off the field, and Heps proved to be no exception to this pattern. Simmons finished first in the 800m, her specialty, with a time of 2:07.03, and also won the 1500m earlier on in the day with a time of 4:26.25.

Casey also performed up to incoming expectations, placing third in both the 3k and 5k races. Her time in the 3k was 9:55.64, and she crossed the finish line in the 5k at 17:01.47. Both Casey and Simmons have provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships; Simmons in the 800m, and Casey in the 5k.

Several other Tigers had standout performances as well. Sophomore Hasina Outtz won the 400m hurdles with a time of 1:00.78, and sophomore Emily Kroshus shrugged off recent injuries to earn a third-place finish in the 10k in 35:32.47. Another sophomore, Chelo Canino, placed fourth in the pole vault by clearing 3.6 meters.

Other strong efforts were made in the field events to help boost Princeton to third. Freshman Brooke Minor jumped 1.70m to finish second in the high jump, and sophomore Betsy Kennedy placed sixth in the hammer throw with a distance of 45.66m, and fourth in the javelin with a distance of 41.23m.

Also, sophomore Susan Coltman finished a close second in the heptathlon, scoring 5,196 points in the seven events to come in only 249 behind the leader, Shaina Damm of Dartmouth.

Though Princeton didn't achieve a championship, a third-place finish can hardly be considered a disappointment by a team for whom the majority of point-scorers are underclassmen. Only last year were the Tigers at the bottom of the women's track Ivy League totem pole; now the program finds itself coming into position to challenge the perennial Ivy powers.

Unfortunately, however, next year's squad will lose the abilities of Casey and Simmons to graduation. But as the strong performances from this year's sophomores and freshmen show, the program shouldn't lack for talent. It's still too early to say for sure, but Princeton very well could better its twin third-place indoor and outdoor Heps results.